7 Commonwealth Park Newton

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AuburndalePark has a wide variety of attractions including river frontage (with ice skating in winter), fields, wooded areas, ball fields, basketball and tennis courts, horseshoe pits, a 1.3 mile life course with exercise stations, a children's playground, picnic tables, and grills.

The Riverwalk features vestiges of one of the oldest dams on the Charles River, with remains of raceways built by David Bemis in 1778, and scenic views of the Charles River. The path from Galen Street in Watertown Square, improved by the MDC in 1998, offers scenic overlooks, a fish ladder at Watertown Dam, falls, fishing areas, and boat launches.

Forte Park, formerly Allison Park, features a soccer field, basketball courts, children's playground, and restrooms. On summer evenings, herons roost on the Charles River bank next to the park.

Walkway is similar in feel to the Bridge Street to Galen Street stretch, with dirt and gravel trails, boardwalks, split log benches, and riverside overlook decks. Native plants reintroduced for minimum upkeep.

Walking, bird watching, nature study, and ice skating. A biodiversity study in 2000 found 120 plant, animal, and insect varieties. Red maple swamp with netted chain fern, round-leaved sundew, swamp milkweed, poison sumac, and cotton grass abound. Birdwatchers have spotted over 130 species of birds near Dolan Pond.

Surrounded by stone walls and bordered by Boston College Law School on one side, this park contains woods, small clearings, wetlands, Edmands Brook, and a glacial esker. Its open oak forest contains beeches, locusts, maples, birches, and pines.

This beautiful property was saved from mass development by a creative arrangement. Originally part of a private golf course, the land on its edges was sold for condos, funding the purchase of the golf course. The course itself, now a public course, is situated in a valley, and the steep hillside on the Eliot Memorial end provides a scenic view. The Cochituate Aqueduct runs underground through the south end.

Today the paths around the Reservoir and through the woods are open for public use, where local birders have found good vantage points for the somewhat frequent viewing of rarities in migration. The DCR recreation center offers seasonal swimming and ice skating.

On this serene spot you will find four ponds, graceful hillsides, and over 26 species of unusual trees such as marshall maple, castor auralia, shagbark hickory, hardy rubber tree, zelkova, amur corktree, camperdown elm, and weeping beech.

Walk around the lake, or sit on a bench and watch the ducks. A dredging completed in 1992 was intended to slow down the eutrophication process that's common in shallow, man-made ponds, especially those in highly developed areas.

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. Email pa...@newtonma.gov to reserve the ball fields. The southern end of the park includes an off-leash dog area.

People come here to swim, fish, and boat. The bathhouse is open during the summer. Shoreline path and sidewalks allow for walks along three sides of the lake. Because Crystal Lake is a "great pond" (a pond that's larger than ten acres), it is state owned.

This small park is a natural woodland garden. Its extensive array of tree and shrub species include American beech, dogwood, flowering quince, fringe-tree, mock orange, mountain ash, shad bush, viburnum, witch hazel, and yellowwood. It is maintained by volunteers from the Newton Conservators.

This wild garden is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its gracious paths, overhung by azalea and rhododendron, wind around a stream and lagoon-like pond. Water features were designed by Warren Manning, who formerly worked for the Olmsted studio. Uncommon migrating birds are seen here.

A National Historic Landmark, the handsome stone bridge contains the Sudbury Aqueduct, with a pedestrian walk on top. Visitors standing under the arch can make a fine echo and view the deep river gorge, waterfall, and steep hemlock-covered banks. Spectacular views atop the bridge.

Dramatic views of Charles River rapids contrast with peaceful, green riverbanks. Visitors can walk on a long, rebuilt Victorian-style bridge just above the fast flowing spillway, the falls, the millway, and the Cordingly Dam Fish Passage. Grassy sloping shorelines and old mill buildings, now retrofitted for offices and residences, maintain the feel of a significant site of early industry along the Charles.

Field with crabapple trees, wildflowers, and mowed path paralleling the Charles River. The Riverwalk leaves Conservation Commission land and continues on a conservation restriction path alongside condos.

This is a post-agricultural forest grown up on 19th century farmland. The mixed and conifer woodlands reveal colonial stone walls, a red maple swamp with century-old trees, and a Sensitive Fern marsh.

The park has a wooded hillside with puddingstone and Brighton Volcanic outcrops. Pigeon Hill is a woodland with a circular stone wall. The conservation area protects the South Meadow watershed. The house is the headquarters of the Newton Parks and Recreation Department, and is not open to the public.

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