Barnsley Gardens, plantation in Georgia, United States

Barnsley Gardens is a former plantation near Adairsville, Georgia, centered on the brick ruins of an Italianate manor designed by Andrew Jackson Downing. The roofless facade retains arched and rectangular openings, with ivy covering parts of the walls. The surrounding parterre garden, laid out in the early 1840s, survives with its boxwood hedges.

Godfrey Barnsley, an English merchant from Liverpool, acquired 10,000 acres from the state of Georgia and built the Italianate manor Woodlands in the late 1840s, designed in the style of an Italian villa by landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing. The house was burned during Sherman's March to the Sea, and Barnsley lost his fortune, dying in New Orleans in 1873. A tornado tore off the roof in 1906; his granddaughter Adelaide Saylor moved into the kitchen wing, and the main house was never restored. Prince Hubertus Fugger bought the estate in 1988 and stabilized the ruins.

The name Barnsley comes from Godfrey Barnsley, an English immigrant who established the estate in the 1840s. Visitors can see how the property was designed as a retreat for a wealthy family, with gardens and buildings that reflect English influence on Southern architecture.

The resort lies off U.S. 41 near Adairsville, about 60 miles northwest of Atlanta. Paths link the inn, cottages, restaurants, spa and golf course, and a walk leads to the stabilized brick ruins and the restored parterre garden. The boxwood hedges and flower beds are best seen on foot; some ground near the ruins is uneven.

A tornado destroyed the main house in 1906, yet the family continued living in a smaller wing, a rare example of adaptation after loss. The grounds then fell into decay for decades until a German prince from a banking family purchased the ruins in 1988 and brought the estate back to life.