Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve and Wildlife Management Area covers the northeast corner of Edisto Island: about 4,687 acres of maritime forest, salt marsh, old fields, freshwater ponds and an undeveloped beach, according to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR), which manages it. For most visitors, a Botany Bay Edisto trip means two things: a slow drive past plantation-era ruins and a walk out to Boneyard Beach, where dead trees stand in the surf.
It’s free and open most days, but it runs on its own rules. The preserve is closed every Tuesday and on scheduled hunt days, there are no restrooms or trash cans, the beach is reachable only at low tide, and nothing – not a single shell – may leave the property. Read this page before you go and you’ll avoid the most common disappointments.
Botany Bay at a Glance
- Location: End of Botany Bay Road, off SC Hwy 174, northeast Edisto Island (Charleston County)
- Hours: 1 hour before sunrise to 1 hour after sunset (SCDNR, as of 2026)
- Closed: Every Tuesday and on scheduled hunt days, mostly September through January
- Cost: Free; every visitor needs a day-use pass from the kiosk at the main gate
- Facilities: None: no restrooms and no trash cans
- Good for: Beach walks at low tide, photography, birding, history, cycling the driving tour
- Time needed: SCDNR says the driving tour alone takes from 1 hour to several hours; add an hour or more for the beach
- Contact: SCDNR, (843) 844-8957
- Tips: Check the tide chart and the SCDNR closure calendar the day before, and pack out everything you bring
Botany Bay Hours and Closures
As of 2026, SCDNR lists Botany Bay’s hours as 1 hour before sunrise to 1 hour after sunset. The property is closed on Tuesdays to all public access except designated hunts and department-run activities, and it closes to general visitors on scheduled hunt days. Some older SCDNR documents give a half-hour window instead, so if you’re cutting it close at either end of the day, confirm on the official SCDNR Botany Bay page, which links the department’s calendar of closures and events.
Hunt closures cluster in fall and winter. If your trip falls between September and January, check the calendar before you drive out; the gate is several miles down a dirt road, and there’s nothing else at the end of it.
Remaining 2026–27 Hunt Closures
These are the closure dates SCDNR posted for the rest of the 2026–27 season. The preserve is closed to all general visitation on these days, in addition to every Tuesday. Dates can change, so treat the calendar as the final word.
| Dates | Reason for closure |
|---|---|
| Nov. 2–4, 2026 | Lottery deer gun hunt |
| Nov. 9–11, 2026 | Lottery deer gun hunt |
| Nov. 14, 2026 | Dove hunt (youth/adult) |
| Nov. 23–28, 2026 | Archery deer hunt |
| Dec. 7–9, 2026 | Lottery deer gun hunt |
| Dec. 14–16, 2026 | Lottery deer gun hunt |
| Dec. 21–26, 2026 | Archery deer hunt |
| Jan. 9, 2027 | Dove hunt (youth/adult) |
| Jan. 23, 2027 | Dove hunt (youth/adult) |
Why the Tide Matters
SCDNR is blunt about it: the beach is only accessible at low tide. Near high tide, water runs up into the tree line and there may be no dry sand to walk on. Look up the day’s low tide on our Edisto tide charts and aim to reach the beach in the couple of hours around it. A falling tide gives you the most time.
Getting There and Getting Your Day Pass
Botany Bay Road leaves SC Hwy 174 on the northeast side of the island; heading onto Edisto from the mainland, it’s a left turn. The road is unpaved and runs under a canopy of live oaks – the stretch locals call the tunnel of trees. There’s no official street address for the preserve, so follow the signs on Botany Bay Road to the main gate.
At the gate, every visitor fills out a free day-use pass at the kiosk and follows the instructions posted there. From the gate it’s about 2 miles to a four-way crossroads, passing the manager’s house at about the 1-mile mark. From the crossroads you can start the driving tour or follow signs toward the beach parking area.
Because the interior roads are fragile, only vehicles up to the size of a 15-passenger van may tour the property, and ATVs are prohibited. After heavy rain, expect puddles and ruts and drive accordingly.
The Walk to Boneyard Beach
From the beach parking area it’s about a half-mile walk to the sand, on a causeway across the salt marsh and then through a wooded hammock. SCDNR notes the causeway is wheelchair accessible. Bicycles are allowed on the roads and the causeway, but you can’t ride on the beach; park bikes at the end of the causeway.
The beach itself is the reason Botany Bay shows up in so many photos. Erosion has pushed the shoreline inland, and the maritime forest it overtook – oaks, palmettos and pines – now stands dead and bleached on the sand and in the surf. SCDNR calls it Boneyard Beach. For timing, photography and safety around the trees, see our Driftwood Beach guide.
The beach is also a nesting site for loggerhead sea turtles, a federally threatened species, and least terns, which are state-threatened. Stay out of any posted or roped-off areas, and if you’re here in summer, read up on sea turtle protection.
Botany Bay Rules
These rules come from SCDNR’s Botany Bay regulations and property page. They apply everywhere on the preserve unless noted.
- Day pass: Required for every visitor, from the kiosk at the main gate.
- No collecting: No natural items or cultural artifacts may be collected or removed, including on the beach. That covers shells, fossils, driftwood, pottery, plants and fungi.
- Dogs: Not allowed on the causeway or the beach at any time.
- Horses: Not allowed on the causeway or beach; riding elsewhere is by free permit only.
- No alcohol, drones or metal detectors.
- No camping.
- Bikes: Fine on roads and the causeway, not on the beach.
- Vehicles: 15-passenger vans and smaller only; no ATVs.
- Trash: There are no trash cans, so carry out everything you bring.
- Fig Island Shell Rings: Closed to the public except for permitted scientific or educational work.
The no-collecting rule surprises people who are used to filling a bag with shells on Edisto Beach. At Botany Bay, take photos instead. If you want to hunt for shells and shark teeth you can keep, our shark teeth and shelling guide covers where that’s allowed.
Fishing, Crabbing and Paddling
Shore fishing, shrimping and crabbing are allowed only on the front beach and in designated areas, and there’s no fishing from any causeway. Jason’s Lake is open Friday through Sunday for adult–youth catch-and-release only: a youth 17 or under must fish with an adult who holds a South Carolina saltwater recreational license, and youths can’t fish alone. For licenses and species, see our Edisto fishing guide.
Sea Cloud Landing on Ocella Creek and other designated access points are for non-trailered boats only, such as kayaks and canoes. If you’d rather go with a guide, start with our page on kayaking tours and rentals.
Horseback Riding
Riding is by free permit only, on roads open to vehicles and in designated areas. Groups are limited to 10 horses, all dikes are closed to horses, and there’s no riding during scheduled deer, turkey and hog hunts except on Sundays. Permits and data cards are at the kiosks, and SCDNR posts the riding permit form online.
The Botany Bay Driving Tour
SCDNR’s self-guided driving tour has 15 numbered stops, and you can drive it or ride it on a bike. The department’s driving tour guide (written in 2008) describes the route as about 3 miles, not counting the 2-mile entrance road, and says to allow anywhere from an hour to several hours. You’ll see longer distances quoted elsewhere; go by the markers rather than the odometer.
The tour starts at the entrance kiosk and finishes back at the crossroads. From the last stop, turn right at the crossroads for the beach trail. Highlights along the way:
- Stop 1 – Main gate: An avenue of live oaks at the entrance.
- Stop 2 – Manager’s house: Formerly the owner’s house, with a horse pasture and a large live oak.
- Stop 3 – Bleak Hall icehouse: A white wooden Gothic Revival building from the 1800s on a tabby foundation, where ice shipped from the North was packed in sawdust. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Next to it are a tabby gardener’s shed, a well and the overgrown remains of a Japanese-style garden that SCDNR says is reputed to be the first of its kind in North America.
- Stop 4 – Tabby barn: A Colonial-era tabby barn at the site of the Bleak Hall house, above Ocella Creek.
- Stops 5–6: Open agricultural fields, good for spotting hawks, followed by live oaks with salt marsh views.
- Stop 7: The surviving chimney of a slave house.
- Stop 8 – Picnic Pond: Dug in the 1970s, with “Mrs. Peppers’ Oak,” a tree saved by the former owner.
- Stop 9 – Jason’s Lake dike: Built in the 1970s; crossing it takes you onto the former Sea Cloud Plantation.
- Stop 10 – Sea Cloud Landing: A car-top boat launch on Ocella Creek.
- Stop 11 – Sea Cloud ruins: About 200 yards from the landing, built by enslaved laborers in the early 1800s.
- Stop 12 – Beehive well: A brick well near the upper end of Jason’s Lake, built by enslaved people in the 1700s for drinking water.
- Stops 13–15: The middle dike between brackish Jason’s Lake and freshwater ponds, then a forest of dead live oaks, killed when earlier owners replanted the land in loblolly pine.
In 2026 SCDNR is also running a timber operation on roughly 250 acres of the property: thinning, a small loblolly pine clearcut to restore longleaf pine, hedgerow clearing for dove fields and clearing along roadsides. The department warns that some areas may look rough for a while. It’s habitat work, not damage.
Botany Bay History
Botany Bay is two former plantations joined together: Bleak Hall and Sea Cloud. SCDNR counts 21 recognized historic sites on the property, and much of what you see on the driving tour was built by enslaved people.
Sea Cloud traces back to a 170-acre land grant to Christopher Hinkley in 1695, and its main house was built around 1825 by Ephraim Mikell Seabrook. Daniel Townsend III began developing Bleak Hall in the late 1790s, with a mansion built around 1805. By 1859 John F. Townsend had combined the two into what SCDNR describes as one of the largest long-staple (Sea Island) cotton plantations on the East Coast. Historical records show he enslaved 272 people in 1860.
During the Civil War, the first Bleak Hall mansion’s cupola served as a lookout for both Confederate and Union troops. The house burned soon after the war and was replaced by a Victorian house. In 1933 Dr. James C. Greenway bought both properties and combined them as Botany Bay Plantation.
John E. “Jason” Meyer bought Botany Bay in 1968. When he died in 1977, he left it to the state, with his widow, Margaret (later Margaret Pepper), allowed to remain for her lifetime. After her death in 2007, SCDNR opened the property to the public in 2008. The Fig Island Shell Rings, the Bleak Hall outbuildings and parts of the 1850 Bache U.S. Coast Survey line on the property are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The preserve is still growing. In November 2025 SCDNR added the 176-acre Bayview Farms tract, on the right side of Botany Bay Road between Hwy 174 and the preserve, after the Open Space Institute bought it with conservation grants. It had been at risk of housing development and is now open for hunting, hiking and birding. For the wider story of the island and the Gullah Geechee people whose labor built these plantations, see Gullah culture on Edisto and the Edisto Island Museum.
Wildlife at Botany Bay
SCDNR’s driving tour notes painted buntings along the main avenue in spring and summer, along with summer tanagers, warblers and woodpeckers in the woods. Herons and egrets work the marsh, hawks and falcons hunt over the fields, and more than 100 bird species have been recorded on the property. Our Edisto bird watching guide has seasons and etiquette.
Deer are common, and the freshwater ponds are typical Lowcountry alligator habitat, so keep your distance from the water’s edge and never feed wildlife.
Tips for Visiting Botany Bay on Edisto
- Check two things the day before: the SCDNR closure calendar and the tide.
- There are no restrooms, so plan a stop before you turn onto Botany Bay Road.
- Bring water, sunscreen, insect repellent and a bag to carry out your trash.
- Wear shoes you can walk a mile round trip in; the beach has broken branches and roots in the sand.
- Don’t climb on the dead trees. They’re unstable and keep breaking down.
- SCDNR and ACE Basin research reserve staff sometimes lead free guided programs; they’re listed on the SCDNR calendar.
- Planning a small wedding or commercial photo shoot? Call SCDNR at (843) 844-8957 first.
Botany Bay FAQ
Is Botany Bay open on Tuesdays?
No. Botany Bay is closed to the public every Tuesday, except for designated hunts and SCDNR-organized activities. It also closes on scheduled hunt days, mostly between September and January.
How much does it cost to visit Botany Bay?
Nothing. Entry is free, but every visitor must fill out a day-use pass at the kiosk at the main gate.
Can I take shells or driftwood from Botany Bay?
No. SCDNR prohibits collecting or removing any natural item or artifact, including shells, fossils, driftwood, pottery and plants. That applies on the beach too.
Can I bring my dog to Botany Bay?
Dogs are not allowed on the causeway or the beach at any time, which rules out the main reason most people visit. Leave pets at home or plan a different outing for them.
How far is the walk to Boneyard Beach?
About a half mile each way from the beach parking area, over a causeway through the marsh and a short stretch of woods. The causeway is wheelchair accessible.
When is the best time to visit Botany Bay?
Go near low tide, since the beach is only accessible then. Sunrise is popular with photographers because the gates open an hour before it. Cooler months tend to bring fewer insects, but that’s also when most hunt closures fall, so check the calendar.
Plan Your Trip
Pair Botany Bay with a slow drive through the tunnel of trees on the way in, then spend the rest of the day at Edisto Beach State Park or on one of the island’s hiking trails. For more ideas, browse our full list of things to do on Edisto Island.