Washburn-Norlands Living History Center trails

After visiting the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center, a living history museum and farm, you can walk its short but interesting paths. They are wide, like old carriage trails, and bring you to a neat spot by two spring-fed reflecting pools, called the Pools of Simeon, dug out in 1903. After walking to these pools, you could continue on to the modest lookout. Evidently on clear days, you can see Mt. Washington from this spot, but I have never managed to!

The trails are wide and easy to follow. They sit on the side of the hill, so some exertion is required. You’ll descend down to the pools, and the trail to the overlook brings you up a slight hill.

Although there is a tiny place to park by the trailhead, it’s recommended that you park at the sizable lot for the history center. That way, you can also walk through the campus on your way to the trail system, admiring the church, Victorian country mansion, gothic granite library, and one-room schoolhouse. The Washburn family was a prominent family in the 19th century, and the center recreates what life was like for them in rural Maine in the mid-1800s. The buildings are very well preserved.

To reach the trailhead, walk north, parallel to Norlands Road. When Norland Road bears right, stay straight, and in a few feet you’ll see a little driveway on your left. Turn in here, and you’ll see the drive curve left to a field while the nature trails curve right, into the woods.

From the church to the pools, it’s about 0.6 miles. It’s an additional 0.2 miles to the overlook from the intersection.

Directions: You can park behind the big beautiful church at the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center, at 290 Norlands Road in Livermore. It is 1.6 miles or so on the right from the intersection of Norlands Road and Route 108.