Richards Preserve
Preserve Details
Location
116 Honey Hollow Road
(near Spring House Road)
Directions
Trail Length
.5 mile loop trail with connections to Armstrong Preserve and the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation.
Amenities
Information kiosk at the entrance.
Features and size
The Richards Preserve feels much larger than its 15 acres. Richards is part of a significant protected forest block, including the Cross River Reservoir and the PRLC’s Armstrong Preserve. The Ward Pound Ridge Reservation is accessible directly across Honey Hollow Road. The loop trail enables hikers to access a wide, low-lying watershed strewn with boulders and including an intermittent stream flowing north into the Cross River Reservoir. Turning left from the entrance, the trail climbs to an elevated plateau that retains grassy ground cover from its historic use as pasture. Hikers are treated to a glimpse of the reservoir before descending to the lower loop trail, which either turns left to access the shoreline and PRLC’s Armstrong Preserve or turns right to return to the entrance, circling a stand of hemlocks on a steep and rocky slope. Along the way, hikers will pass a huge erratic glacial boulder marking a hand-dug stone well. An old farm road runs from near the boulder up the hill to Honey Hollow Road.
History of the Preserve
The Richards Preserve was donated in 1979 by Richard (Dick) Richards and Hilke I. Richards of Los Angeles, CA. The acreage fronting Honey Hollow Road had been hay fields until the 1940s. The remainder of the preserve has been forested for at least the last 100 years. A sawmill located nearby suggests that the property was used as a woodlot and trees were selectively harvested rather than cleared in preceding centuries.
Flora & Fauna
Older-growth forest contains a remarkably diverse distribution of mature Yellow birch, Sugar and Red maple, White ash, American beech, Tulip poplar, and White, Red, Black, and Chestnut oak. Newer forest is dominated by Black birch and Sugar maple. A stand of Eastern hemlock provides shelter for wintering animals including Great-horned owl, Red-tailed hawk, and White-tailed deer. The sparse understory, lack of wildflowers, and beautiful groundcover of sedges and ferns indicate historically heavy presence of deer in this valuable wildlife corridor.