A 100-acre Gilded Age estate on the James River, Maymont was donated to Richmond in 1925 and has been free and open to the public ever since. The grounds include an Italian garden, a Japanese garden, a carriage house museum, a children's farm with domestic animals, and a wildlife exhibit with native Virginia animals — black bears, bald eagles, river otters — in large naturalistic enclosures. The mansion itself offers guided tours of its Gilded Age interiors.
Maymont is one of Richmond's most democratic public spaces: on a Saturday afternoon in spring, you'll find families with strollers, dog walkers, couples picnicking on the Italian garden terraces, and children petting goats at the farm. It is genuinely great and genuinely free.