Monday, March 5, 2012

Photographing Wormsloe

Just down the road from Isle of Hope Marina is the Wormsloe Historic Site, owned by the state of Georgia since 1973.  Pam and I decided to walk the dogs to Wormsloe and bring my camera to take some pics.

It was originally owned by a fella named Noble Jones who bought the land in 1733.  Jones built Wormsloe as a fortified house with thick tabby walls ( tabby is a building material consisting of lime, sand, water, and crushed oyster shells) with gun ports.  The ruins of Wormsloe are still there, a testiment to overbuilding with two foot thick walls.  The old estate is a beautiful place to visit.  After passing through the main gate, you are presented with a mile and a half lane lined with hundreds of 130 year old Live Oaks on each side.  This picturesque site was used by several movies including "Forest Gump", "The Last Song", "The General's Daughter", and "The Gift".

There are many nature trails leading from the visitors' center to points of interest, including the ruins of Wormsloe, a Colonial house often manned by reinactors, and nature walks.  If you're ever in the Savannah area, make this a must see stop.  Bring your camera.

Here are a few pics.















On the way back, we passed a short tree with dozens of pieces of blue glass hanging off it, like the pic below.


This practice was brought to the south by African slaves who hung bottles from trees.  It was believed that evil spirits wandering at night would be mesmirized by the colorful glass and would enter the bottle, where they would be trapped.  They would perish in the next day's sunshine.   There were bottle trees in the movie "Ray", which Pam and I watched on rainy-movie-Friday.  This African custom has morphed from bottles to pieces of blue glass, and from blue glass to folks painting the roofs of their porches sky blue.

All in all, a very nice day for the crew of Drift Away.  What's up for today?  I have no idea.  It's a Monday.  Maybe I'll get to work on Pam's seaglass jewelry website.  Or maybe not.  Maybe something else will come along.

4 comments:

  1. My wife, who was "born and raised" in Savannah says that color blue was called 'haint blue by blacks in her youth. They painted houses that color to ward off spirits. There are still 'haint blue houses in some sections of Augusta--probably in Savannah too. It is a distinctive color, especially on a whole house.

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  2. Fantastic photos Dave. I really enjoy learning about a place like this. I recognize the lane with the oaks on along the side(movies?), even though I've never been there. I missed a good thing so close by.

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    1. Hey Tom,

      The one thing I like about poking along is having the time to explore where we are. When we left Annapolis in January, we were in a rush to get south quick. We flew by places that I really wanted to have more time to explore. We'll hit them up on the way north and spend time in each looking for places like Wormsloe.

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