Hamlen Woods and Mainstone Farm highlight a complex of conserved lands owned by the Town of Wayland, Sudbury Valley Trustees, and other private entities. Additional protected lands, including Mainstone Hills, Reeves Hill, and Turkey Hill, contribute to a network of wildlife habitat and public trails.
Hamlen Woods encompasses upland forest and an old reservoir with beaver activity. The adjacent Mainstone Farm Conservation Restriction is a sweeping 218-acre landscape that includes agricultural fields and woodland. An extensive trail system links these lands that are protected and cooperatively managed by SVT and the Town of Wayland.
The trails are marked with colored diamond-shaped signs, indicated by the corresponding colored lines on the map. The blue trail will lead you from the Hamlen Woods parking area, north to Reeves Hill Conservation Land, over a one-way route of approximately 1.75 miles. The red trail will take you on an approximately 4.5-mile circuit through all of the connected areas.
Use caution while walking on Rice Road if you plan to link your walk between the Mainstone Farm parking area and Turkey Hill Road.
- Outstanding natural features include many outcroppings of bedrock, mostly Westborough Quartzite, and a kettle hole formed by a glacier.
- Stone walls provide evidence of earlier pastures, as do large cedar trees.
- The ponds that greet you near the Hamlen Woods parking area on Rice Road were created when Snake Brook was dammed in colonial times, initially to create Rice’s Pond. The dam eventually was enlarged to create a reservoir for nearby Cochituate Village, but its use as a water supply ended in 1929.
- The banks of ponds and streams here include outcroppings of ancient bedrock, a formation of weathered granite known as “Rice Gneiss” (named for nearby Rice Road).
