Settlement Quarry, Stonington

This Island Heritage Place preserve offers a remarkable place to walk at an old quarry, with beautiful views from broad expanses of bright granite.

From the parking area and trail head, it is a quarter-mile along an accessible dirt road to the first open area of the quarry. Or, alternatively, you could take a more round-about way via the 0.3-mile Glacial Erratic Trail, which is on your right soon after leaving the parking area, for a stretch of trail in cool, mossy evergreen woods.

The Glacial Erratic Trail deposits you onto the white smooth granite of the quarry, which is slightly curved like the sides of a small moon. Blazes on the stone mark the way to the “viewing platform,” where a bench and platform have been inserted into a cut-out area of granite around a blocky stone table. Here you’ll have gorgeous views of Webb Cove, the islands of Merchants Row, and Isle au Haut. It’s so beautiful! And it’s a great hike for kids, as long as one takes care at the granite edges.

It can be hard sometimes to see where the path goes on the granite ledge, but it’s all open, so it’s impossible to get lost. There are lots of informative panels explaining the geology and history of the area.

The granite of the quarry is mostly made up of pink and white feldspar and quartz (with bits of mica), and once was used for courthouse columns, bridges, and buildings, including the Triborough and Williamsburg bridges in NYC and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The quarry closed for good in 1980. The Island Heritage Trust offers information for a self-guided tour. (P.S. The old pole head, marked on the map, was used in the former quarry operations and looks like a piece of equipment from the old sci-fi video game Myst!)

Directions: From Route 15 in Stonington, turn onto Oceanville Road. The quarry trailhead and kiosk will be on the right in just under a mile.