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Cold Spring Park

Overview

The park has ample wooded areas, fields, a brook, and wetlands. A weekly farmers’ market is held each summer on the parking lot off Beacon Street.

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. The ball fields may be reserved. The southern end of the park includes an off-leash dog area.

 

Size: 67 acres    Longest Walk: 1.5 miles    Acquired: 1930s

Longer Walks that include this property:
A Loop Along the Aqueducts
From Waban to Chestnut Hill

Maps

 

Scan this code using the camera or QR code app on your smartphone for quick access to maps and other information on the property.

Get here by MBTA:

a 0.5 mile walk from the Newton Highlands Green Line station

Other maps and aerial photos:

Bing Maps bird’s-eye view

Newton Assessor

Connects to:

Cochituate Aqueduct runs along the edge of the park

Nearby:

Newton Cemetery

Crystal Lake

Trail Map


Click map for larger image

GPS Enabled Trail Map

Access City of Newton GIS Map


To see your location, press the location icon while viewing the map on your smartphone. If the blue location dot doesn’t appear when you open the map, come back to this page and click here.

Owner & Administrator Websites


Photo Gallery

First three photos shown here. Click a photo to view the complete slideshow or click here to browse the complete gallery.

History

1633

Part of 150-acre swamp and peat bog held as common land under a ruling by the General Court.

1848

Construction of the Cochituate Aqueduct, which now runs along the edge of the park.

1910s

The Atlas Film Corp. bought the southern part of the park, and filmed silent movies there.

1930s

Alcock’s Swamp was drained, and the brook was rechanneled, lowered five feet, and partly culverted. The city acquired the land by gift, purchase, and tax taking. City developed south half of the park.

1983

City developed the Beacon Street half of the park.

Features

Birding, Cross Country Skiing, Life Course, MBTA Green Line, Meadow, Off-leash dog area, Sports Fields, Toilet Facilities, Vernal Pool, Woods Trail
 

Additional Information

Newton Assessor’s Map ID: 54022 0058 and other parcels

Advocates & Caretakers:

Friends of Cold Spring Park:

Website

Facebook

Park Features:

Newton Farmers Market is held on the Beacon Street parking lot every Tuesday afternoon from July through October.

Facebook page

The Red Maple Swamp in the park

Birding reports

Essays, Articles, and Lectures:

Cold Spring Park: Problems, Progress and Possibilities, a 2021 webinar by Alan Nogee of the Friends of Cold Spring Park

Mysteries of Cold Spring Park, by Michael Clarke

An Old Man’s Walk in Cold Spring Park, by V. Eugene Vivian, PhD

Plant list

Cold Spring Park Buckthorn Project to demonstrate the impact of the invasive on the native red maple and clethra

From Cold Spring Park to Planet Earth, the Conservators’ Fall 2001 lecture, by Dan Perlman

Crows Mob Owl, Wreak Havoc, an essay by Pete Gilmore

Environmental Show videos:

A Naturalist’s View

Recreational Opportunities

Other Information:

A temporary installation by artists Mags Harries, Ross Miller, and Marty Cain funded by National Endowment for the Arts was placed in various locations in the park in 1993.

Cleanup of debris from old landfill

 

 

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