Mike H. writes:This is in the Leadmine mountain conservation area that the town of Sturbridge purchased from Old Sturbridge Village. 826 Acres of undeveloped land. The parking lot is reached by going up Stallion Hill Road past Old Sturbridge Village, keep going straight after the intersection with Douty Road and the parking lot is on the left hand side. There is an information board there with a map. This hole in the wall is on a trail and is called a wall bridge.
I took these photos on St Patrick's Day around sun rise and the sun came through this opening in the wall as it rose over the crest of the hill just east of this wall. I imagined that at one time there were no trees and I followed the path of where the sunlight landed on the ground after passing through this opening...it was surprisingly far away...and there were some rocks arranged on the ground in this area.Update (Mike continues in another email):
I went up to the Conservation area this morning to have another look. The Parking lot is 1.5 miles past the main entrance to Old Sturbridge Village. The wall can be found by taking the red trail to the right and following it down to the intersection with the blue trail on the left (There will be a double blazed blue rectangle on a big pine. The blue trail follows the stone wall that starts in the middle of the woods and travels north along a rocky ridge, takes a right turn and heads east for a while, going up and down hills and then takes a sharp left turn to the north again. It stops formally and then starts up again and continues north. The "wall bridge" is at the top of the ridge. The wall continues past this point then makes a 90 degree right turn and head down the hill east and then stops. There is another wall that is parallel to this last east west portion, just to the north, which ends at a brook. The construction of this wall is very interesting.
In the first picture of the "update," there is a standing or manitou stone to the right of the opening with the bridge stone.
ReplyDeleteVery intriguing!
Mike shows two different bridged openings, or so it seems. Are they part of the same section of wall? Also, is the feathery wall construction in a separate image part of the wall depicted in either of the two photographs?
ReplyDeleteThe pictures show views of the same opening from two different sides of the wall. The feathery section in the other picture is located in the same wall, further to the south. There are many section of this wall that are unusual. Some portions have the appearance of a tipped over stack of dominoes heading up hill. I have about 35 pictures, but many of them are blurry due to low light, long exposure, operator moving camera. I will try to post some of them soon.
ReplyDelete