Town · Kennett Square, Chester County
Kennett Square
A walkable small town that calls itself the Mushroom Capital of the World, with restaurants and galleries along State Street and Longwood Gardens just outside.
Kennett Square calls itself the mushroom capital of the world, and with reason: the farms around it grow a large share of the country's mushrooms, in the long, low mushroom houses you pass on every back road, and the town celebrates the crop with a mushroom festival every September. Its compact downtown along State Street has a lively mix of restaurants, galleries and shops in old brick buildings, and its Quaker families made it a station on the Underground Railroad.
Longwood Gardens is just east of town, close enough to make Kennett Square the obvious place to eat before or after a visit. The Brandywine Museum of Art and Brandywine Battlefield are a few miles northeast at Chadds Ford, and the woods and meadows of White Clay Creek Preserve run south to the Delaware line.
Make a day of it
In and around Kennett Square
Public Garden · East Marlborough Township, Chester County
Longwood Gardens
Pierre S. du Pont's garden masterpiece: a vast conservatory, dancing fountains, meadow and woodland walks, and a famous holiday light display.
Museum · Chadds Ford Township, Delaware County
Brandywine Museum of Art
Three generations of Wyeth family art in a converted 19th-century grist mill on the Brandywine River, surrounded by native-plant gardens.
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
State historic site · Chadds Ford Township, Delaware County
Brandywine Battlefield Park
Part of the ground of the 1777 Battle of Brandywine, one of the largest battles of the Revolution, with the farmhouses used as quarters by Washington and Lafayette.
Preserve · London Britain Township, Chester County
White Clay Creek Preserve
A quiet valley along a federally designated Wild and Scenic River, with trails that continue across the state line into Delaware and an 18th-century Baptist meetinghouse.
Also nearby
Nearby
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Longwood Gardens
Pierre S. du Pont's garden masterpiece: a vast conservatory, dancing fountains, meadow and woodland walks, and a famous holiday light display.
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Brandywine Museum of Art
Three generations of Wyeth family art in a converted 19th-century grist mill on the Brandywine River, surrounded by native-plant gardens.
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Chadds Ford
A Brandywine Valley village known for the Wyeth family of painters, the Brandywine Museum of Art and the 1777 Battle of Brandywine.
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Brandywine Battlefield Park
Part of the ground of the 1777 Battle of Brandywine, one of the largest battles of the Revolution, with the farmhouses used as quarters by Washington and Lafayette.
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White Clay Creek Preserve
A quiet valley along a federally designated Wild and Scenic River, with trails that continue across the state line into Delaware and an 18th-century Baptist meetinghouse.
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Big Elk Creek State Park
Rolling old farm fields and woods along a clean, high-quality creek near the Maryland line, crossed by trails for hikers, cyclists and riders and alive with birds.