Just fifteen minutes from our new home is Nottingham County Park. This was the first Chester County Park and was dedicated in September 1963. Located at 150 Park Road, Nottingham, PA 19362. The Herrs Factory is not far away, and you can take a factory tour there as well.
You can download a copy of the park trail map here.
The park is 731 acres in size with trails, a horse riding ring, and horse trails, a fitness trail with 18 stations, the link above allows you to reserve a pavilion, and three modern handicap accessible playgrounds. There are also nine pavilions which you can reserve for events, I believe all have a grill next to them and port-a-pottys close by. There are plentiful trash bins too.
I took Jackie with me two weeks ago and this weekend Annie, my fiancé, Jackie and I all went for a visit. We parked in the main lot and walked down toward MacPherson lake and around it. We discovered the concrete foundations of a placer chromite mine that was built during the First World War probably to provide Chromium for munitions.
We noticed that the colors are changing on the trees and it will definitely be more beautiful as the weeks pass. The lake is not large, but you can fish, with a license on a catch and release system. We saw a father and son spending time together beside the lake fishing.
Jackie also got to see her first horse, as a couple of riders unloaded from a trailer and were using the park for a ride. We also noticed some areas allow bow hunting in season, so with Jackie in tow we avoided that trail.
The park sits atop an outcropping of serpentine stone larger than one square mile in size, one of the largest serpentine barrens on the East Coast. I had never heard of serpentine, but the park website linked above has the following explanation.
Serpentine, a geological outcrop of rare, light-green rock found only in three small geographic areas in all of North America, has soil so low in essential nutrients and so high in some metals that most ordinary plants will not grow. The barrens have their own community of plants, some of them globally-rare, with practically no species in common with the surrounding forests and fields.
Typically, serpentine barrens contain scrub oak, pine, cedar and unique wildflowers. Some areas dominated by grasses are known as true prairies. Some areas with scattered trees are known as a savannah, which can survive and prosper with occasional fires.
It is fascinating what you can learn and discover right on your doorstep. Later today, we are going to visit another park nearby which has just been announced as a new state park, Big Elk State Park.
If you are looking for a home in Chester County and need help, give me a call, there is so much to discover in our county, it is a wonderful place. Contact Nick Vandekar, Selling the Main Line and Chester County, with Long & Foster Real Estate Inc., office 610-225-7400, cell or text 610-203-4543, or email Nick@VandekarTeam.com. I look forward to helping you discover this great county and finding the right home for you.
Comments (16)Subscribe to CommentsComment