Ashley Community Forest

Location Strafford and Sharon, VT
Acreage 256
Protected Since 2022
Featured Recreation Land

Town forest offers trails and glimpses of Vermont history

The Ashley Community Forest is home to woodland trails and scores of spectacular trees, many of them maples and black locust. Visitors can investigate old cellar holes and stone walls. They’ll also find the remnants of two wells, giant stone culverts, and a sugar house foundation.

Established in 2022, this community forest is new, and trails are still being built, but it joins a proud tradition of community forests that is as old as New England itself. What makes it unique is that it straddles two towns: Sharon and Strafford. The towns manage the land together.

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A town forest rooted in community

The Ashley Community Forest is a natural gathering spot for the community. The woods are home to a growing trail system, stunning trees, many of them black locusts. It also harbors a few wetlands and two tributaries of Fay Brook that flow into the White River.

Volunteers are developing trails and making improvements to this relatively new town forest. They also organize events that explore the land’s many historical landmarks as well as its trails, trees, and open meadows – often by day, other times by the light of the moon.

Cellar holes and stone walls

The property has changed substantially over the years. Around 1830, it was a successful sheep farm. By the mid-1900s, half the land had been cleared for farming.

Today, the forest has largely returned but the land still bears some fascinating evidence of its homesteading history.

Visitors can investigate several old cellar holes and intricate stone walls. They’ll also find the remnants of two wells, giant stone culverts, and a sugar house foundation.

“You can kind of see how things were laid out in the 1830s,” says community member Michael Sacca who helped establish the community forest. “There are several barn foundations and a number of outbuildings, and wells… so that’s a feature of the land that we plan to take full advantage of in terms of educational value and the cultural history of the place.”

Visiting info

Public Access
Dogs Allowed
Parking

The forest is open from dawn to dusk, year-round. To visit, go to Nutting Road in Strafford, just south of the intersection of Robinson Road and Brook Road. Please note that Nutting Road is a class 3 road, so please drive with care when road conditions are muddy or frozen.There’s a parking area at the end of Nutting Road that can accommodate six cars.

Trails are being improved so please exercise caution when hiking.

Download trail map

The Ashley Community Forest story

When news spread of a very large proposed development across fields and woods in central Vermont, some residents came together to offer a different vision.

The Alliance for Vermont Communities (AVC) rallied local residents — one result was the creation of the Ashley Community Forest.

“We organized workshops, outings, and walks to get people familiar with the land and tell the story of what we were trying to do with it—everything from poetry workshops to events for kids,” says Michael Sacca, president of the AVC.

“We got the word out, and it was really successful. It really helped get people familiar with the land, and that’s continued.”

They won the hearts of their neighbors—and raised nearly $300,000 in three months to protect 256 acres in Sharon and Strafford.

Creating a two-town community forest

AVC bought the land and, with our help and a grant from the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, conserved the land and donated it to the two towns in 2022.

It was named the Ashley Community Forest, in honor of the land’s former residents, the Ashley family, who bought the land in the 1920s.

“AVC scoured the web for models but there were no models that we could find for two municipalities working together to co-manage a parcel,” explains Michael. “Hats off to the towns and selectboards for taking this on.”