Newton Open Space Map and Index

Trails wind through a meadow, steep pine and hemlock covered riverbanks, and wooded knoll opening to a scenic view of the Charles River. There are tagged, honorary trees and shrubs in the meadow.

Auburndale Park has a wide variety of attractions including river frontage (with ice skating in winter), fields, wooded areas, ball fields, basketball and tennis courts, horseshoe pits, a 1.3 mile life course with exercise stations, a children's playground, picnic tables, and grills.

The Riverwalk features vestiges of one of the oldest dams on the Charles River, with remains of raceways built by David Bemis in 1778, and scenic views of the Charles River. The path from Galen Street in Watertown Square, improved by the MDC in 1998, offers scenic overlooks, a fish ladder at Watertown Dam, falls, fishing areas, and boat launches.

Forte Park, formerly Allison Park, features a soccer field, basketball courts, children's playground, and restrooms. On summer evenings, herons roost on the Charles River bank next to the park.

Walkway is similar in feel to the Bridge Street to Galen Street stretch, with dirt and gravel trails, boardwalks, split log benches, and riverside overlook decks. Native plants reintroduced for minimum upkeep.

Blue Heron Bridge is a stunning 140-foot suspension bridge that crosses the river at Cheesecake Brook.

A wetlands area traversed by paths, boardwalks, and foot bridges. There are four small ponds in all.

Walking, bird watching, nature study, and ice skating. A biodiversity study in 2000 found 120 plant, animal, and insect varieties. Red maple swamp with netted chain fern, round-leaved sundew, swamp milkweed, poison sumac, and cotton grass abound. Birdwatchers have spotted over 130 species of birds near Dolan Pond.

The boardwalk and trail system is wheelchair-accessible.

Woodland with vernal pool, old oak forest, hilly terrain, and stone memorial to Avery family.

Surrounded by stone walls and bordered by Boston College Law School on one side, this park contains woods, small clearings, wetlands, Edmands Brook, and a glacial esker. Its open oak forest contains beeches, locusts, maples, birches, and pines.

The park is used for walking, jogging, nature study, birding, cross-country skiing, and sledding.

This beautiful property was saved from mass development by a creative arrangement. Originally part of a private golf course, the land on its edges was sold for condos, funding the purchase of the golf course. The course itself, now a public course, is situated in a valley, and the steep hillside on the Eliot Memorial end provides a scenic view. The Cochituate Aqueduct runs underground through the south end.

The area is enjoyed for cross-country skiing and sledding in the winter.

A popular 1.5-mile circular path with pleasant vistas of Back Bay skyscrapers, the Reservation was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted’s son and constructed in the late 1860s to give Boston clean drinking water and a rural park.

Today the paths around the Reservoir and through the woods are open for public use, where local birders have found good vantage points for the somewhat frequent viewing of rarities in migration. The DCR recreation center offers seasonal swimming and ice skating.

Park featuring wildflowers, deciduous trees and typical suburban wildlife. Path along wooded slope leads to a playground. The park includes an off-leash dog area.

Hyde Brook runs through this woodsy hollow surrounded by back yards. Wildlife include deer, coyotes, wild turkeys, and warblers.

From a Conservators board member: "That's my old neighborhood. I first started bird watching as a kid by climbing a huge pine tree there, and being totally amazed by all the spring warblers."

On this serene spot you will find four ponds, graceful hillsides, and over 26 species of unusual trees such as marshall maple, castor auralia, shagbark hickory, hardy rubber tree, zelkova, amur corktree, camperdown elm, and weeping beech.

Walk around the lake, or sit on a bench and watch the ducks. A dredging completed in 1992 was intended to slow down the eutrophication process that's common in shallow, man-made ponds, especially those in highly developed areas.

Many activities are enjoyed here: baseball, tennis, soccer, walking, jogging, dog walking, nature study, birding, and cross-country skiing. A life course with exercise stations is situated along the trail. Email parks@newtonma.gov to reserve the ball fields. The southern end of the park includes an off-leash dog area.

People come here to swim, fish, and boat. The bathhouse is open during the summer. Shoreline path and sidewalks allow for walks along three sides of the lake. Because Crystal Lake is a "great pond" (a pond that's larger than ten acres), it is state owned.

This small park is a natural woodland garden. Its extensive array of tree and shrub species include American beech, dogwood, flowering quince, fringe-tree, mock orange, mountain ash, shad bush, viburnum, witch hazel, and yellowwood. It is maintained by volunteers from the Newton Conservators.

You can walk a 7 mile circuit within Newton on both aqueducts. Or, you can take a 5 mile walk (returning by MBTA) from Waban to Chestnut Hill that begins on the Cochituate Aqueduct.

The largest conservation area in Newton is wooded, with noted rock outcroppings of Roxbury Puddingstone, brooks, ponds, wetlands, fields, and an historic woodland garden.

Activities to enjoy here are walking, jogging, nature study, geology study, birding, rock climbing, and cross-country skiing.

This wild garden is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its gracious paths, overhung by azalea and rhododendron, wind around a stream and lagoon-like pond. Water features were designed by Warren Manning, who formerly worked for the Olmsted studio. Uncommon migrating birds are seen here.

Situated on the banks of the Charles River, the Leo J. Martin Golf Course began play in the 1930's.

During the winter months, the course is transformed into a commercially run cross-country ski area, with equipment rental and refreshments.

A National Historic Landmark, the handsome stone bridge contains the Sudbury Aqueduct, with a pedestrian walk on top. Visitors standing under the arch can make a fine echo and view the deep river gorge, waterfall, and steep hemlock-covered banks. Spectacular views atop the bridge.

Dramatic views of Charles River rapids contrast with peaceful, green riverbanks. Visitors can walk on a long, rebuilt Victorian-style bridge just above the fast flowing spillway, the falls, the millway, and the Cordingly Dam Fish Passage. Grassy sloping shorelines and old mill buildings, now retrofitted for offices and residences, maintain the feel of a significant site of early industry along the Charles.

Field with crabapple trees, wildflowers, and mowed path paralleling the Charles River. The Riverwalk leaves Conservation Commission land and continues on a conservation restriction path alongside condos.

This is a post-agricultural forest grown up on 19th century farmland. The mixed and conifer woodlands reveal colonial stone walls, a red maple swamp with century-old trees, and a Sensitive Fern marsh.

The park has a wooded hillside with puddingstone and Brighton Volcanic outcrops. Pigeon Hill is a woodland with a circular stone wall. The conservation area protects the South Meadow watershed. The house is the headquarters of the Newton Parks and Recreation Department, and is not open to the public.

The property adjoins Kennard Park and Conservation Area and Hammond Pond Parkway, forming 140 acres of protected trails and wildlife. Skyline Park has over 15 acres of sport fields, playgrounds, and trails.

Trail follows brook through wooded upland and wetland and by old stone fences. Walking, birding, nature study. Dramatic puddingstone outcroppings.

A public access pathway from Ober Road goes over privately owned lands to the top of Oak Hill. Oak Hill is a drumlin with an elevation of 291 feet that was formed by glacial action. There is sandy till in the outcrop at the top of the hill, and rocks of varying sizes from sand to cobble size intermixed in the till.

Take in the scenic view of the Charles River Valley and the Blue Hills. You can look across to Bald Pate Hill, which is another drumlin (302 foot elevation) with typical rounded elliptical shape.

The Oakdale Woods are typical of the many small open space parcels in the southern part of the city that were developed after World War II. This small space has been used by neighborhood children for winter sledding, acorn fights, and informal camping for many generations and was left undeveloped due to its geological features, including a substantial deposit of Roxbury Puddingstone and glacial boulders, as well as a steep cliff running the length of the woods.

Pocket parks with trails rising through wooded slopes. Frank Barney has Roxbury Conglomerate ledges and benches. Martin has old stone walls.

The park includes riverfront, community garden plots, meadows, wooded hillsides, wild blackberry bushes, wetlands, a pond, and an open plateau overlooking the river valley. The park is used for walking, jogging, canoe launching, fishing, field games, kite flying, picnicking, nature study, cross-country skiing, sledding, and birding. The park is known to attract birders who come from far and wide to observe uncommon birds, particularly during spring and fall migration.

The 800 acres known as Cutler Park include the largest remaining fresh water marsh on the middle Charles River. The marshland and the small lake attract over 100 species of birds.

This section of the Blue Heron Trail runs along the border of wetland vegetation through a wooded floodplain. It was constructed through a cooperative effort involving the Parks and Recreation Department, the Conservation Commission, the state, the Newton Conservators, and Newton Knights of Tunsion.

This National Historic Landmark is a diverse mix of terraces and knolls covered by fields, forest, and a cemetery whose adjacent marsh and wetlands include a small brook on the south and the Charles River on the west. Once farmland, trails now lead through a mix of wetlands, meadows, fields, and woodland.

You can enjoy Millennium Park on its own, or as part of a trail network leading (with a few gaps) all the way to Nahanton Park in Newton.

The park used to be a landfill hill. Today it consists of six miles of handicapped-accessible walking trails, playing fields, a canoe launch on the Charles, a nature trail, and wonderful views of the Blue Hills, Newton's hills, and downtown Boston.

Linear park on old railroad line connecting Newton Highlands with the Charles River.

Newton's last farm was saved from development in 2004 when the Newton Board of Aldermen approved the proposal by the Newton Conservators to use Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds to buy the farm.

This lovely piece of open space at a highly visible location near the Charles River and Nahanton Park has been farmed by Newton Community Farm since 2006.

Wooded trail along Charles River shoreline. Signs of beaver activity. Trail crosses several small streams via bridges and logs. Trail may be impassible in summer due to poison ivy.

Steep, wooded slope with wildflowers and ferns.

One of the last large, privately owned pieces of open space in Newton, Kesseler Woods was threatened with development in 2003. At the urging of the Newton Conservators and other open space advocates, the City of Newton was successful in protecting a majority of this property through an innovative partnership with a private developer, Cornerstone Corporation. The trail system is not yet open.

A former MWRA reservoir on a hill overlooking Boston College.

Woods and gardens above and adjacent to the Cochituate and Sudbury Aqueducts. Historic stone bridge that once crossed a stream connecting two small ponds.

This proposed section of the DCR Blue Heron Trail would run from Lyons Field on Commonwealth Avenue to Concord Street.