Stony Brook Reservation

IUCN Category V - Protected Landscape / Seascape

Small pond in the Stony Brook Reservation

The area Stony Brook Reservation is a 192 hectare comprehensive park and forest area in the southwest of Boston and northeast of Dedham, Massachusetts in the United States. The area extends from the district of West Roxbury way to Hyde Park, the city Dedham account for a total of 57,500 m². The area is part of the Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston in 1894 as one of the original five protected areas of the Metropolitan Park Commission identified as such.

The height above sea level in the park varies from 4.5 m at the Mother Brook to 103 m on the Bellevue Hill, the highest natural elevation in Boston. Among the possible activities, which can be followed in the park include fishing at Turtle Pond, athletics, tennis, ice skating and swimming. The park is crossed the Stony Brook Reservation Parkways, a road system, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006 and several hiking trails and mountain bike trails offers.

In the reserve of the Stony Brook rises.

History

The concept for the use of developed land not so far in the Boston area through an interconnected park system was designed by landscape architect Charles Eliot, who had worked with Frederick Law Olmsted and taken over in 1893, the leadership in the company. Eliot was mainly responsible for the establishment of the Trustees of Reservations and the public Metropolitan Parks Commission in the 1890s and was anxious to extend the network of parks on the Boston area.

The first five areas that were acquired by the Metropolitan Park Commission for this system in 1893, were Beaver Brook Reservation, Blue Hills Reservation, Hemlock Gorge Reservation, Middlesex Fells Reservation and Stony Brook Reservation.