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Saturday, March 26, 2016

Haverford Heritage Trail - 3/26/16

Sara and I went on a 'urban hike' today. We did go through some woods and traveled on off road trails in sections but the primary surface was paved roads and sidewalks.

Total mileage 6.5 give or take
I created our route starting with the Haverford Heritage Trail. Page two of the brochure found here shows the entire 14 mile trail. The trail is not fully traverse-able right now because the Darby Creek Trail is washed out in spots. So we did the route marked in blue in this photo.

From Ardmore Avenue and Golf View Road we wandered into the center of the map to visit my old house on Grasslyn Avenue. Hey, this was a heritage hike after all. ;)


From here we headed out to Eagle Road to pick up the Pennsy Trail which takes off behind the YMCA formerly the bubble gum factory for those that remember these things. I closed my eyes to see if I could still smell the bubble gum. Mostly all I could smell was chlorine.

I'm fairly certain the Pennsy Trial is new. Ok new is a relative term. It wasn't there when I lived in the area 40+ years ago. If it had been I'm sure I would have discovered it. The Pennsy Trail connects the Y to the Skatium.

We turned off the trail at Manoa Road to follow the Heritage Trail. The trail is nicely done. It connected us to all sorts of historic spots. Being the old fashioned dork that I am I printed out the descriptions to take with us. Yes, I know we could have looked them up on our phones but that uses data and battery unnecessarily (IMHO). Sara patiently listened as I read off the descriptions at various stops. Go ahead laugh. I'll wait.

Our tour took us past; The Glen; The Grange Estate; Old Manoa Road; Powder Mill Valley; Gunpowder Magazine; Lawrence Cabin (relocated); Nitre Hall; Beechwood Station/Park/Bridge; Leedom/Dickinson Mansion; Old Haverford Friends Meeting; St. Denis Church/Cemetery; Mary Kelly Ott House.

The spots were in various states from functioning structures (The Grange, St Denis Church and the Mary Kelly Ott House) to crumbling remains (the gunpowder magazine). I was grateful for the directions and descriptions or we wold have missed a few of the stops.

The trail is well marked in a variety of ways depending on what was available.





The Leedom/Dickinson Mansion fascinated me. I wondered if the folks who lived in the more modern houses surrounding knew what it was. There is no sign and it appears that someone does live in it.

We arrived back at our cars about 2.5 hours after we left them. We had mapped out another 3 miles but decided to save that for another day. With all the stops to check things out that 3 miles was going to take us farther into the afternoon than I wanted to go today.

The Haverford Heritage Trail is a great idea. More communities should do this!

-Keep smiling and keep moving
Paula



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