A sunken Octagonal Garden is the first of several formal gardens that ornament the landbound wingspan of the Butterfly Lakes at Middleton Place (see "B").

The precise alignment of several distinct gardens in the wingspread of the butterfly landform, shown in this garden plan (drawn after the fact by A.T. S. Stoney), were meticulously surveyed and executed. One long edge of the Octagonal Garden is situated parallel to the highest tier of the butterfly landform where it opens into the broad expanse of the wing field. Small individual shrubs accent the simple form of the garden whose long sides -- twice the length of its short sides -- frame grassy quadrants separated by paths that meet in the center.

As the first of the formal gardens after the terraces rise tier upon tier a full quarter-mile above the river (a rare elevation in the Carolina Low Country), the simple garden gains drama from being lower than the surrounding plane. The topographic drama of the sunken garden is further enhanced by low enclosing borders that allow its visual alignment with and physical proximity to other distinct gardens to be viewed from within. At increasingly higher elevations along the diagonal axis of the triangular field of formal gardens are a rose garden, constructed at grade in the shape of a wheel, and The Mount, originally constructed higher than present.

The gradual sequential effect of this ascent on a colonial visitor who arrived by boat to bowl on the greens in the Octagonal Garden must have been stunning -- no less so given the mathematical precision with which the ascent was designed and constructed. Perhaps moreso, given that the distribution of trees within and between the formal spaces creates the impression that the formal patterns have emerged from the forest edge, despite the measured design by which these gardens were located between the water and the woods.

Plan caption: Several distinct gardens at Middleton Place, in Charleston are precisely aligned along the diagonal of a triangle of gardens within the wingspread of the butterfly landform. Drawing courtesy of Middleton Place, Charleston, South Carolina

Octagonal Garden caption: On the wing field above the terraced Butterfly Lakes of Middleton Place, the sunken Octagonal Garden, originally a bowling green, is the first of three formally-aligned, ascending gardens. Photographed at Middleton Place, Charleston, South Carolina