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Castle Hill (Ipswich, Massachusetts)

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Houses completed in 1926Houses in Ipswich, MassachusettsHouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Essex County, MassachusettsIpswich, MassachusettsMuseums in Essex County, MassachusettsNational Historic Landmarks in MassachusettsNational Register of Historic Places in Ipswich, MassachusettsParks in Essex County, MassachusettsProtected areas established in 1949The Trustees of ReservationsTudor Revival architecture in MassachusettsUse mdy dates from August 2023
The Crane Estate at Castle Hill in Ipswich, Massachusetts
The Crane Estate at Castle Hill in Ipswich, Massachusetts

Castle Hill is a 56,881 sq ft (5,284.4 m2) mansion in Ipswich, Massachusetts, which was completed in 1928 as a summer home for Mr. and Mrs. Richard Teller Crane, Jr. It is also the name of the 165-acre (67 ha) drumlin surrounded by sea and salt marsh that the home was built atop. Both are part of the 2,100-acre (850 ha) Crane Estate, located on Argilla Road. The estate includes the historic mansion, 21 outbuildings, and landscapes overlooking Ipswich Bay on the seacoast off Route 1, north of Boston. Its name derives from a promontory in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, from which many early Massachusetts Bay Colony settlers immigrated. The estate is a relatively intact work from the Country Place Era of the turn of the 20th century, when wealthy families built extensive country estates. The Crane Estate includes architectural and landscape designs from at least seven firms or individuals of national reputation, including the Olmsted Brothers and Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, and it is extensively documented. In recognition of its state of preservation and design, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998. The property is now owned by The Trustees of Reservations and is open to the public.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Castle Hill (Ipswich, Massachusetts) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Castle Hill (Ipswich, Massachusetts)
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N 42.685144444444 ° E -70.779205555556 °
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The Back Avenue

Massachusetts, United States
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The Crane Estate at Castle Hill in Ipswich, Massachusetts
The Crane Estate at Castle Hill in Ipswich, Massachusetts
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Crane Beach
Crane Beach

Crane Beach is a 1,234-acre (4.99 km2) conservation and recreation property located in Ipswich, Massachusetts, immediately north of Cape Ann. It consists of a four-mile-long (6 km) sandy beachfront, dunes, and a maritime pitch pine forest. Five and a half miles of hiking trails through the dunes and forest are accessible from the beachfront. Crane Beach is open year-round, and is free to Ipswich residents with the purchase of a yearly beach parking sticker. Non-residents must pay a fee to enter ($40 on weekends during peak season for a car, as of August 2021). In the summer months there is a refreshment bar, and the restrooms, showers and changing facilities are open year-round. During low tide, it is often possible to wade out to sand bars, and during the warm months small boats often dock on these sand bars. Across the water, Plum Island and its sandy beaches are visible. Crane Beach was established in 1945 as a gift from Richard T. Crane Jr., son of Richard T. Crane, and his family. Along with Castle Hill and the Crane Wildlife Refuge, it is owned and maintained by The Trustees of Reservations. There is an annual celebration that takes place at the beach on June 16 (if the weather is sufficient) called Crane Beach Day. On this day, students from the Doyon and Winthrop Elementary Schools, as well as the Ipswich Middle School students, gather at the beach during the school day. The middle school students have the option to take part in a run that goes from the Ipswich Town Hall, to the beach. Mr. and Mrs. Richard T. Crane, Jr. (previous owners of the Crane Estate) began a tradition of inviting all the Ipswich school children to the beach for a day in 1911 to celebrate their son, Cornelius’, 6th birthday. Ever since, the tradition of Crane Beach Day has been repeated. In 2011, the schools celebrated the 100th anniversary of the event. Several students, with birthdays closest to the day of the event, arrived at the beach by boat like they would when the tradition was started. There were people hired to impersonate the Crane family and greet people as they got to the beach, a replica of the old Ipswich Lighthouse, and even a special ice cream flavor dedicated to Cornelius (called “Cornelius Crunch”). In addition, every student received a celebratory t-shirt to wear to the beach, featuring a picture of Cornelius on his 6th birthday.Crane Beach is an important nesting site for the threatened piping plover. The 2006 International Piping Plover Breeding Census estimated that only 3,884 plovers remained. According to the same 2006 census, Crane Beach was home to 19 breeding pairs and 40 total adults.The Greenhead fly is active in this area for a few weeks in July and early August.The Cape Ann Transportation Authority (CATA) provides summer weekend bus service between the Ipswich MBTA train station and Crane Beach.

Ipswich River
Ipswich River

Ipswich River is a small river in northeastern Massachusetts, United States. It held significant importance in early colonial migrations inland from the ocean port of Ipswich. The river provided safe harborage at offshore Plum Island Sound to early Massachusetts subsistence farmers, who were also fishermen. A part of the river forms town boundaries and divides Essex County, Massachusetts on the coast from the more inland Middlesex County. It is 35 miles (56 km) long, and its watershed is approximately 155 square miles (401 km2), with an estimated population in the area of 160,000 people.Historically, the settlement of Essex County began at the oldest community there, the tiny seaport of Agawam (later renamed Ipswich, and not to be confused with present-day Agawam in Hampden County), and typically proceeded westward and northward along the Ipswich or its tributary creeks. When Middlesex County was formed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, only Salem and Charlestown across the Charles River mouth and Boston harbor's inner estuary from Boston's much smaller hill dominated peninsula were older settlements. The upper river runs through and drains at least parts of Burlington, the lower river forms part of the borders between the towns of: North Reading and Lynnfield Middleton and the city of Peabody Middleton and Danvers, and Boxford and Topsfield.The wide swamps along the river made it impossible to ford the stream anywhere east of Wilmington in colonial times. The only route north out of Boston to the northeast (today called the North Shore) was via the Andover Road, an often muddy track, later made a wagon road which forded the stream just below the confluence of Lubbers and Maple Meadow brooks.