Join us on Saturday, July 8, at 9 am for a walk to St. Andrews Farm. This 28-acre expanse of field, forest and athletic fields off Middle Highway in Barrington, RI is owned by the Town and managed by the St. Andrews Farm Management Committee, which is composed of Land Trust members, abutters, and several Town officials.
The terrain is gentle and the property is open to the public year-round, dawn to dusk. The guided walk will last about 45 minutes. All ages are welcome.
The walk will be led by Charlie and Ginger Brown, Land Trust stewards for the property. Charlie served for 24 years with the RI Department of Environmental Management’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, where he was the expert on mammals, including coyotes, bats, fishers, bears, foxes, bobcats, and even pumas. Ginger is a former president of the Land Trust and author of Dragonflies and Damselflies of Rhode Island.
The property was operated by St. Andrews School as a working farm from the 1890s until the 1960s. In 2000, the McAdams Charitable Foundation, through the generosity of Norman (“Sandy”) and Dorothy (“Dotty”) McCulloch, purchased the property from St. Andrews School and donated it to the Town of Barrington.
This generous gift ensured that the property would be preserved and maintained as open recreational space for the benefit of the public. Part of the property was set aside for the construction of an athletic field. The remaining acres of rolling grassland and trees bounded by upland and wetland forests are preserved as conservation land.
Consistent with the McCullochs’ goals for the property, the Town and the Land Trust have worked together to restore the property to its original condition and encourage greater public use for walking, birding and educational purposes.
The McCulloch Fields contain a mix of plant communities ranging from field grasses and wildflowers interspersed with islands of shrubs and trees to a woodland buffer around the periphery.
Of particular note are a rare Whorled milkweed (Asclepias verticullata) and a champion white oak tree with a trunk exceeding 12 feet in diameter. The fields provide a habitat for a wide variety of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and insects. Their proximity to the coastal flyway makes it a potentially important stop-over for migratory birds.
For more information about the Barrington Land Conservation Trust, please email Executive Director Cindy Elder.