Olde English District

The Olde English District covers the upper Piedmont of South Carolina, the country running from the North Carolina line south to the Sumter National Forest. The region’s name reflects the early Scotch-Irish and English settlers who pushed down from Pennsylvania along the Great Wagon Road in the 1750s. The terrain is rolling Piedmont — pine-and-hardwood forest, the Catawba River cutting north-south through the middle, and the Pee Dee Shoals breaking the southern edge. Seven counties cover the region. York holds Rock Hill (the largest city), Fort Mill, and the Catawba Indian Nation reservation; Lancaster holds Lancaster (the home of the Andrew Jackson State Park, on the site of Jackson’s birth); Chester holds Chester; Chesterfield holds Chesterfield; Fairfield holds Winnsboro; Kershaw holds Camden (one of the oldest inland towns in South Carolina, with the Camden Revolutionary War Battlefield); Union holds Union. Andrew Jackson State Park, Kings Mountain National Military Park (the site of the 1780 Revolutionary War battle), the Catawba Cultural Center, and Brattonsville (a restored Revolutionary-era plantation village) anchor the major attractions. Most trips here run Revolutionary-history focused. Kings Mountain handles the largest single-stream visitor traffic; Camden’s Revolutionary War battlefield carries the southern history; Andrew Jackson State Park anchors the Lancaster County stop; Rock Hill’s Glencairn Garden and Museum of York County fill cultural visits.