Stony Brook Reservation is a woodland park in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

and Dedham,

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, a unit of the

Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston The Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston is a system of reservations, parks, parkways and roads under the control of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) in and around Boston that has been in existence for over ...

, part of the

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "Federated state, state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on accou ...

system of Massachusetts. It was established in 1894 as one of the five original reservations created by the Metropolitan Park Commission. The park is served by the Stony Brook Reservation Parkways, a road system that was entered into the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 2006.

Location

The park is located in the southwest of Boston. Its main contiguous section extends southwards from Washington Street in the

West Roxbury West Roxbury is a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, bordered by Roslindale and Jamaica Plain to the northeast, the village of Chestnut Hill and the town of Brookline to the north, the city of Newton to the northwest, t ...

neighborhood to

Mother Brook Mother Brook is an artificial waterway in Dedham, and Hyde Park, Massachusetts, and the first man-made canal in the present-day United States. Constructed in 1639 by settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, it diverts water from the Charles R ...

in the Hyde Park neighborhood, with an additional southwest along a roadway to Mother Brook in Dedham. An adjacent portion encompasses the Bellevue Hill water towers on the north side of Washington Street. Stony Brook Reservation contains the headwaters of Stony Brook. Park elevations range from

at to Bellevue Hill, at the highest point in the city of Boston.

History

The use of parcels of undeveloped land around Boston for a system of interconnected parks were conceived by landscape architect Charles Eliot, who had apprenticed with

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, Social criticism, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the U ...

and later assumed leadership of Olmsted's design firm in 1893. Eliot was instrumental in the founding of

The Trustees of Reservations ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

and the public Metropolitan Parks Commission in the 1890s and envisioned an expansion of the parks network to areas surrounding Boston. The first five areas acquired by the Metropolitan Park Commission for this system in 1893 were the Beaver Brook, Blue Hills,

Hemlock Gorge Hemlock Gorge Reservation is a state-owned, public recreation area and urban wild comprising on the Charles River in Newton and Needham, Massachusetts. The reservation is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation ...

, Middlesex Fells and Stony Brook Reservations.

Activities and amenities

Recreational facilities at the park include hiking and biking trails, fishing at Turtle Pond, athletic fields, tennis courts, an ice skating rink, and a swimming pool.

References

External links

Stony Brook Reservation
Department of Conservation and Recreation
Stony Brook Reservation Trail Map
Department of Conservation and Recreation {{authority control Parks in Boston State parks of Massachusetts Protected areas established in 1894 Parks in Norfolk County, Massachusetts Parks in Dedham, Massachusetts 1894 establishments in Massachusetts