Discover 9 hidden attractions, cool sights, and unusual things to do in Portsmouth (United States). Don't miss out on these must-see attractions: Green Animals Topiary Garden, Union Church, and Prudence Island Light. Also, be sure to include Portsmouth Friends Meetinghouse Parsonage and Cemetery in your itinerary.
Below, you can find the list of the most amazing places you should visit in Portsmouth (Rhode Island).
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Green Animals Topiary Garden
Museum in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. The Green Animals Topiary Garden, located in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, is the oldest and most northern topiary garden in the United States. The 7-acre estate overlooks the Narragansett Bay. It contains a large collection of topiaries including eighty sculptured trees. Favorites include teddy bears, a camel, a giraffe, an ostrich, an elephant and two bears made from sculptured California privet, yew, and English boxwood. There are also pineapples, a unicorn, a reindeer, a dog and spot a horse with his rider. There are over 35 formal flowerbeds, geometric pathways, rose arbor, grape arbor, fruit trees, and vegetable and herb gardens. A greenhouse is used extensively to provide seedlings used on the estate. The 1859 Victorian Brayton house museum contains a small display of vintage kids toy and the original family furnishings. Ribbons for prize-winning dahlias and vegetables, dating from about 1915, line the walls of the gift shop. The Preservation Society of Newport County maintains it.[1]
Address: 380 Corys Ln, 02871 Portsmouth
Union Church
Museum in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. The Union Church is an historic church and local history museum owned by the Portsmouth Historical Society at 870 East Main Road at Union Street in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. One exhibit room is dedicated to Julia Ward Howe and includes a collection of furniture from her summer home in Portsmouth and a display about her life.[2]
Prudence Island Light
Lighthouse in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. The Prudence Island Lighthouse, more commonly known locally as the Sandy Point Lighthouse, is located on Prudence Island, Rhode Island and is the oldest lighthouse tower in the state. Sandy Point is nicknamed Chibacoweda, meaning "little place separated by a passage", because the location is a little more than one mile offshore.[3]
Portsmouth Friends Meetinghouse Parsonage and Cemetery
Cemetery in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. The Portsmouth Friends Meetinghouse, Parsonage, and Cemetery is a historic Friends Meeting House and cemetery of the Religious Society of Friends, at 11 Middle Road and 2232 E. Main Road in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
In 1638, exiled religious dissidents from the Massachusetts Bay Colony founded Portsmouth, the second oldest colonial community in Rhode Island. The Quaker community developed shortly after the community was founded.
The current meetinghouse was built around 1699–1700. The building was used as a Quaker house of worship and school. During the American Revolutionary War, British troops occupied the building. In 1784 the Moses Brown School was founded at the church. The meeting house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Currently, services are held weekly on Sundays at 10:30 am. and 7:00 p.m. As of 2020, the meeting house is listed for sale.[4]
Address: 11 Middle Rd, 02871-1272 Portsmouth
Portsmouth Abbey
Monastery in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Portsmouth Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in Portsmouth, on Aquidneck Island in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, United States. The mission of the community is to seek God guided by the Gospel, the Rule of St. Benedict, and most importantly, prayer and work to sanctify themselves and their community. As of 2020, the abbey has 8 monks.[5]
Borden Farm
Building in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Borden Farm is a historic farm at 2951 and 2967 East Main Road in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. There are five historically significant buildings on the 6.2 acres that remain of a farm that was once about 44 acres. The property has been owned by descendants of the Borden family since the early 1700s. The main house is a c. 1865 Second Empire structure built by William Borden; there is also an English barn dating to about 1890, along with a workshop, granary, and wellhouse all dating to about 1900.
The farm was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.[6]
Lawton–Almy–Hall Farm
The Lawton–Almy–Hall Farm is an historic farm at 559 Union Street in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. The farm comprises 40 acres of land, and a well-preserved farm complex with elements dating to the 18th century. The land was first granted in 1648 to George Lawton, and was owned by six generations of the family. It was acquired in 1832 by Peleg Almy, whose family owned it until 1938, when it was sold to the Halls. The farmhouse is one of the oldest in the area, with its northern section estimated to have been built about 1700, based on stylistic resemblance to the Quaker Meetinghouse and a local schoolhouse.
The farm was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.[7]
Battle of Rhode Island Site
Historical place in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. The Battle of Rhode Island Site is the partially preserved location of the Battle of Rhode Island, fought August 29, 1778 during the American Revolutionary War. The battle took place in the town of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, located on Aquidneck Island north of Newport, and was the only major action of the war that took place in Rhode Island. It was also significant as the only battle of the war in which an entirely segregated unit of African-American soldiers fought. At the time of the action, the 1st Rhode Island Regiment consisted of companies of locally recruited African Americans and Native Americans with white officers. The two main areas associated with the battle were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974.[8]
Oak Glen
Historical place in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Oak Glen is a historic house at 745 Union Street in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. It is a 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, with a highly pitched gambrel roof and jerkin-headed gable ends. The house was built about 1870 by Samuel and Julia Ward Howe as a summer retreat. The ell attached to the rear of the house is a c. 1850 cottage which was standing on the site when the Howes purchased the property. After Samuel Howe died in 1876, Julia made this her permanent home. She died here on October 17, 1910, at the age of 91.
The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.[9]