Richmond's Belle Isle and Beautiful Maymont Estate

At last, we arrived in Richmond and were hugging Brennan and Hannah and granddog, Olive, hello. We didn’t have anything special planned, but it really didn’t matter. Just seeing them and spending a few days with them in their new home was food for the soul.

It was mid-week and a week before Christmas, so the kids were still working during the days. Brennan suggested some local hikes and we were fine on our own to do a little exploring. Our first excursion was to Belle Isle within easy walking distance from their home. Located on the James River in downtown Richmond, Belle Isle offers several walking and bicycle trails through a wooded area with great views of the river and the downtown Richmond city skyline. It also has several ruins of historic significance.

Access to Belle Isle is via a pedestrian bridge over the James River and under the highway.

According to the Belle Isle website, ‘Belle Isle has been the site of a number of industrial operations beginning with a nail factory in 1814 and a mill in the same decade. Belle Isle Manufacturing Company built the Richmond area’s first chartered rolling and puddling mills on the island in the 1840’s producing nails, bar iron, boilerplate, and other works of iron. This company became the Old Dominion Iron & Nail Works, which by 1860 was one of the premier nail manufacturers in the country and still occupied the island as late as 1910. The remains of an historic iron foundry are still visible.

Remains of the old nail factory

During the Civil War, the island was home to the Confederacy’s largest military prison, which housed captured Union prisoners in tents surrounded by a stockade. At its maximum capacity in 1863, the prison held 10,000 Union soldiers, with tents for only 3,000. With no barracks for the prisoners, exposure to the elements was a large factor in what would prove to be a staggering death toll on the island.’

We walked and explored for a couple of hours appreciating a warm, sunny Virginia afternoon before returning home. The kids were wrapping up their work day. After dinner, we went for a walk with Olive. Just down the street is the famous Hollywood Cemetery. We’d visited before and relished our return visit. According to their website, “Hollywood Cemetery was designed in 1847 as a “rural” style garden cemetery to escape the grid-like monotony of city cemeteries. Landscape architect, John Notman, specifically left trees and other plants untouched when designing the cemetery's landscape in order to create a peaceful haven for Richmonders. Today, our 135 acres of valleys and hills are covered with heritage roses, stately trees, and other blooms that live up to the name of a garden cemetery. In 2017, Hollywood Cemetery was named a recognized arboretum.” It’s a pretty spectacular place. FYI… Lots, crypts, and niches are still available for purchase throughout its rolling hills and valleys.

We’d missed this unique gravestone on our last visit. The grave of James Millard Glave, a Richmond Architect.

We wandered through the new neighborhood stopping in particular at the ‘Griswaldian’ Christmas decorations at a house along the route. We particularly enjoyed the Dracula figure close to Santa, penguins and the Nativity scene.

Just a little over the top.

Check out Dracula with the Santa cap on.

Over the weekend, we had plenty of time to relax. We visited breweries and cideries and sampled the wares. Brennan and David found a little time to install a new microwave in the kitchen. We talked about books we were all reading and jobs and politics and upcoming plans. We always learn something new when we’re with them. This time they turned us on to a new app called Seek by iNaturalist. It’s a freebie and allows you to take a picture of a plant or animal and identify it on the spot. It has lots of other features and allows you to save what you’ve observed. It’s pretty cool.

None of us had ever been to Maymont before. Maymont is a 100-acre Victorian estate and public park in Richmond and contains Maymont Mansion, now a historic house museum, an arboretum and formal gardens among other features. It’s a grand place. We wandered through Italian gardens and Japanese gardens. This time of year, of course, much of its garden splendor was hibernating, but it was still a worthwhile enjoyable visit.

If you have to social distance, you might as well make it relevant to the venue.

Brennan and Hannah cross stepping stones across a lovely little pond at Maymont.

Columns of the Italian gardens at Maymont

The visit was all too short. We don’t see Brennan and Hannah that often and we try to cram everything possible into the time we have together. But it was time to depart. We headed back to Rhode Island to spend the holidays with Lin and family.