Bullard Woods on West Hawthorne Road in Stockbridge the land of monster trees and lakeside trails! In 1954, this land was given to the Stockbridge Bowl Association by Mrs. William Norton Bullard, one of the original SBA members, and is open to the public. The Woods are managed by the SBA, which has created and maintained hiking trails that lead to the shoreline from a parking area off Hawthorne Road. A bridge fords a stream in the woods, and the public can walk the wooded trails across the Tanglewood connector and continue on to Gould Meadows, exiting on Route 183. At the intersection of Hawthorne Road and Hawthorne Street, across from the Linde Center, is 52 acres of land along Stockbridge Bowl. The woods were originally part of the estate surrounding the Highwood manor house where Mr. and Mrs. William Norton Bullard lived. The house, though originally bequeathed to Harvard, is now part of Tanglewood and is open to the public. An article by Bernard A. Drew, which appeared in The Berkshire Eagle on December 19, 2014, describes Drew’s experiences visiting the old growth trees of Bullard Woods and provides some of the history of the previous owners of the land. An excerpt appears below: “Bullard Woods in Stockbridge, property of the Stockbridge Bowl Association since 1957, is home to dozens and dozens of remarkable old “big trees,” as some call them.

Robert T. Leverett, with his friend John Knuerr, assessed the woods in 2004. They identified a new state record white oak (115.3 feet high, 6.9 feet diameter at breast height). They also found a white pine that was more than 133 feet high, a tulip tree 124.4 feet, a shagbark hickory 114 feet and a black cherry 100.8 feet. Look out for our return visit to find and study these giants!

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