photo: Tom Holzel
Quick Links |
In 1917, Edith Morton Chase received a gift from her father, 16 acres of pristine woods in the Litchfield hills. Today, Topsmead is a 510 acre state forest, gifted from Ms. Chase in 1972 to the citizens of Connecticut to enjoy and preserve. Her legacy includes diverse landscapes, including bike and nature trails, formal gardens, unique bird habitats, and a meticulously crafted English Tudor style cottage well appointed with her international collection of art and antiques. ...more
Our MissionFriends of Topsmead State Forest (FTSF) is a volunteer non-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose purpose is to work with the State of Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP) to provide programs and activities to promote, preserve, protect, and maintain the history, heritage and environmental integrity of Topsmead, thereby supporting the wishes of Edith Morton Chase as put forth in her will.
|
by Margaret Hunt
photo courtesy of Jackie Neagle
Getting Horizontal & Giving Thanks...November 2020Walking about Topsmead on this grey, blustery, November afternoon, I realize that my eye is no longer drawn to and focusing on the vertical height of the summer flowers and hayfields. The tall dahlia stems with their explosive blossoms in the formal gardens around the house, the waving fronds of the hayfields surrounding the house, and the abundance of lavender reaching up to attract the butterflies at the pollinator garden are done, finished for the season, cut down, put to bed. With the summer vine growth cleaned off Topsmead’s many stone walls, my eyes can now freely trip along the horizontal length of those walls. With the remnants of the last leaves of fall stripped from the trees by our recent windy rain storms, my eyes are now free to roam across the flatness of field after field and follow the view out beyond them to the horizon of the surrounding hills.-more- |
Happenings at Topsmead |
Learn more ways to enjoy Topsmead by visiting us on Facebook!
Keep Topsmead in mind as you begin your holiday shopping. Click HERE to set "Friends of Topsmead State Forest" as your default AmazonSmile charity and Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases to Topsmead.
