The Trustees website www.thetrustees.org has a list of properties. Each property has information and a list of symbols that tell you what's what at the location. Maggie at 12 (the vet says 13) is my age if you translate dog years to people years. She has been walking less lately and insists on wearing a polar dog fur coat year round so I chose the Eleanor Cabot Bradley Estate in Canton because it had the easy walk symbol and the dog walk symbol. The Trustees want you to police dog waste, but I didn't see the useful pick-up bags available at Borderland and Sheep Pasture.
The website promised I would be transported "back 100 years to a bucolic world of majestic homes, elegant gardens, carriage rides, fields and woodlands – all the amenities of gracious, turn-of-the-century living in the Neponset River Valley." At 90 acres the property is about two-thirds the size of Sheep Pasture and absolutely tiny compared to Wheaton Farm and Borderland.
The estate is located on Route 138, but I decided to give my Garmin a workout and surprisingly it sent me up Route 24 to Route 128. The reason for this became apparent when I got off Route 128 at the 138 South exit. The estate's entrance is about one second off the exit overpass. Look quick for the small sign or you'll miss it. Apparently many people do since there were only two cars in the lot when I arrived at 7:30 on Sunday. As I was getting Maggie into her gear and slipping on my EcoRangers Survival Kit Backpack, someone approached with a large dog and left. He was the last person I'd see on my visit. Perfect!
The "majestic" country home of the Bradley's was built around the same time as the Ames estates at Borderland, Stonehill, and Wayside (the Town Offices). It's nice, but it doesn't measure up for an Eastoner and its closed to the public. Surprisingly the mansion's formal "elegant" garden doesn't measure up to our Queset Garden. Let's stop the tour for a moment and reflect that Queset Garden was a jungle just a few years ago and thanks to a town-wide effort the place is now a masterpiece. If the Bradley Garden is a point worth mentioning, our garden is a hidden gem. I recently toured some nice folks from Pennsylvania and they were blown away by the garden and its surroundings.
Kitchen Garden
The Start of Our Walk
The Carriage Road leads gently downhill with beautiful views of the property's central hill including a huge bank of ferns. It's a cool and shady walk once you leave the hay fields something Maggie definitely appreciated. The hay fields are exactly that. The hay at Sheep Pasture and Wheaton Farm is laced with wildflowers because very little effort has been expended to improve the hay beyond cutting it annually. This is great for wildlife and adds to the charm of those spots. The hay at the Bradley Estate is serious stuff, as close to "amber waves of grain" as you're likely to see in this area, with a beauty all its own.
The Carriage Road is well maintained and gives you the feel of what it must have been like to tour the estate in the old days. "Well maintained" doesn't mean the Trustees have done any better fighting poison ivy than the rest of us, but invasive species don't jump out at you at every turn like they do at Sheep Pasture. This probably is a result of a combination of factors: a more active management, a more mature trail edge that has not let invasives gain a foothold, and the lack of an Olmsted to seed the property with things like barberry and honeysuckle.
On the Carriage Road
The Trustees provide a map of the property on the website, and you can pick up a print version at the parking lot, but in general the paths form a big circle. Unfortunately for the unobservant, the Carriage Road dead ends at the bottom of the property so you either have to retrace your steps or take to the woodland trails to return up hill. Now inside every EcoRanger Survival Kit Backpack there is enough equipment to MacGyver a small helicopter, but Maggie and I decided to try the uphill wood trail with the warning sign about ticks and poison ivy. After a water break off we went.
Sun Dappled Woodland Trail
The wood trail had poison ivy aplenty on its edges, but it seems we escaped both the ivy and the ticks. In reality the trail was broad, and without the signs of wear you can see at Borderland. There was a fair amount of animal sign. The only problem was the non-aerobic nature of the walk. Maggie kept walking-she'll quit if things get too much for her in summer and hitch a ride-but her pace got slower and slower. There weren't a lot of dog smells for her to check out, but she did want to explore the animal tracks and sign we found. She's always been skeptical of forests and proceeds with caution with a stop, look and listen attitude lest a lurking dragon pounce from a tree. And, of course, it was uphill. It really was a lovely trail lined with pine needles and bird song. To be truthful, a really steep uphill is a challenge for me, but except for a short patch near the mansion, the slope was as easy as advertised.
"I Don't Care What You Say, It's A Dragon Skull"
So is it worth leaving home to see the Bradley Estate? If Sunday morning was typical, it's a great place for a quiet walk with just you and nature. The Trustees recommend setting aside an hour an a half for a visit and that seems about right. Change in elevation gives you something you won't find in Easton and there is a variety of habitats. In Spring there are a number of flowering shrubs and trees to see. To be fair to the Formal Garden, there is an Allee that leads off into the woods that was planted with flowering trees that must be very pretty in season. The area around the mansion is closed to the public for weddings on Saturdays and some Sundays from 1 pm from May to October, but the rest of the property is open from dawn to dusk. If you click on the Quest Box at the website for the estate, you can download a poetical tour guide which can focus a visit with kids. Definitely worth a visit which might be combined with other Trustee properties in the area. I'm planning a second visit.
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