Dover’s Caryl Park ... Gateway to Noanet Woodlands

Noanet, together with the contiguous Hale Reservation, is big enough (seventeen miles of trails in Noanet alone, ranging from flat to seriously scrambly) to keep a party of nature lovers busy for as long as they’d like. Here, summarized from the Trustees of Reservations website, are a few notes on this pretty special place: “The Reservation is named after a chief of the Natick Indians, who camped, fished, and hunted along Noanet Brook. During its settlement, Noanet Woodlands was cleared for timber, firewood, and a few small homesteads. In the early nineteenth century, Samuel Fisher, Jr. used Noanet Brook to operate a sawmill, producing boards, planks, and joists for the construction of buildings in burgeoning Dedham. Fisher's business boomed throughout the 1820s and 1830s. Later, the Dover Union Iron Company built a large rolling and slitting mill that made barrel hoops, wheel rims, nail plates, and nail rods from forged iron. Today the mill's twenty-four-foot-high dam and twenty-foot-deep wheel pit are preserved, but visitors will have to imagine the towering thirty-six-foot overshot wheel that powered the mill.” Won’t have to imagine the mill ponds and dams, though; they’re still there.

A good place from which to begin an exploration of Noanet is the Caryl Park entrance on Dedham Street in Dover.  Warning: There are a pair of parking lots here, the “real” one, which comes up first and is hard to spot, and the overflow lot, a little further down the way and graced with a sign so big you’d think it was the primary. It isn’t. To get to Caryl Park ask Mapquest to direct you to “120 Dedham Street” or … if you’re a risk taker … try the following:

From Route 128/95

Take the Highland Street exit, Exit 19B, west toward Needham and drive Highland 1.7 miles a little past Memorial Park to the lights at Route 135 (Great Plain Avenue). Go right a block, then immediately left on Chestnut Street. After this it’s a piece of cake; just keep going until, after 1.6 miles or so, you cross the Charles River. Here Chestnut bears right, making a seamless segue into Dedham Street. From this point continue west on Dedham Street about 1.8 miles to the first Caryl Park lot (there are two), the one with the small, hard-to-see sign. It’ll be on the left.

Mapquest calculates the driving time from Route 4/225’s crossing of Route 128/95 to Caryl Park is a little less than a half hour, traffic permitting.

From Weston and Wayland

If MapQuest is correct, driving out to and down 128/95 is the fastest route to Caryl Park. But, here’s another: From Weston’s Town Hall, take School Street across Route 20 to Wellesley Street, turn right there, and drive about 5.2 miles to the lights at Central Avenue (Route 135). Turn left and drive about a quarter mile to Washington Street, go right, and then immediately left onto Grove Street. Continue down Grove Street 1.8-ish miles to Charles River Road. At Charles River Road go left and continue along it another mile to the stop sign at Central Street. Go straight across and continue along Charles River Street 0.6 miles to South Street. Here, turn right, cross the Charles in about 0.1 miles, and continue along South (now Willow) Street to Dedham Street. Getting close now! Make a right and drive a quarter mile to Caryl Park. Look for it on the left.

From Wellesley

Just drive down Grove Street, as indicated above. But you probably know a better way.

*** Good Luck !!! ***