Sherborn, Massachusetts fall foliage

Sherborn is a small, wooded town of farms, stone walls, and conservation land on the Charles River, southwest of Boston. About 1,000 acres of the town are open to the public, and the best of its fall color is along the trails.

Rocky Narrows. Here the Charles River squeezes between wooded granite hills, a passage known in colonial times as the “Gates of the Charles.” It became The Trustees’ first reservation in 1897 and now covers about 274 acres, with roughly seven miles of trails. A loop of about two miles leads to the Rocky Narrows Overlook, above hemlock-covered cliffs and the river.

King Philip’s Overlook. Farther south, in the Sherborn Town Forest and reached by trails from Rocky Narrows, a granite ledge looks out over the Charles River valley to the forests of Medfield and Millis, with Noon Hill on the horizon. In fall, the woods below fill the valley with color. The name recalls Metacomet, the Wampanoag leader the English colonists called King Philip.

Barber Reservation. About 190 acres of town conservation land on Western Avenue, with trails through open meadows and mixed woods that turn colorful in fall.

Sherborn Town Forest. Roughly half of the town’s public land, the Town Forest runs in a long crescent from the Charles River in the southeast to near the Framingham line in the northwest. Its trails link with Rocky Narrows, other conservation land, and the Bay Circuit Trail, a regional trail that passes through town.

Smaller spots. Peters Hill has a trail that climbs through oak, maple, and pine past mossy boulders, and the meadows of the Hopestill Reservation are edged with maples, oaks, and old stone walls.

For more on Sherborn’s trails, conservation land, farms, and town center, see Sherborn.com.

Routes 16 and 27 run together along Main Street through Sherborn’s town center, then split. Route 27 heads north to Natick and south past farms, stone walls, and woods toward Medfield. Route 16 heads east through South Natick to Wellesley.