Old Town House Park and Dunn’s Depot Trail

Old Town House is a beautiful town park, with wide trails through meadows. Some of the trails border the Royal River, with benches for resting and picnicking. All together, the preserve has 3.1 miles of paths crossing 25 acres of fields and 30 acres of seasonal flood plains and freshwater wetlands. This is an ebird hotspot, and the meadows host bobolinks that begin to nest in the tall grass starting around mid-May (when dogs should be on leash).

Across the street (Route 9) from the secondary parking lot by the boat launch (the one closer to the river) is the 1.4-mile Dunn’s Depot Trail, which you can add to your explorations of Old Town House Park or check out as a nice destination on its own. When we walked it in December 2023, the route followed an unmarked snowmobile track for about 0.5 miles to a blazed 0.4-mile trail that ran along a pretty stretch of river. Where the footpath intersects again with the snowmobile trail, you can cross the bridge to a spot by the river where a few tree trunk seats have been set up. The main snowmobile track continues on across private property; the landowner permits hikers. It eventually comes out onto Toddy Brook Lane, and you can hike back to Old Town House Park along the railroad tracks.

Photos contributed by Michaela Goldfine.

Directions: The address is 470 Memorial Highway (Route 9), North Yarmouth. The main trailhead is on Route 9, opposite Ansel Lane. The lot — which is very big! — is about half a mile west of the intersection with North Road. Additionally, there is a smaller parking lot down a very steep pitch closer to the river where you can launch a boat. This secondary lot is across the street from Dunn’s Depot Trail. (Don’t park in the emergency parking spot by Dunn’s Depot Trail, you’ll be blocking a fire hydrant.)