Hike #1233; Buckingham to Jamison

Hike #1233; Buckingham to Jamison

7/3/19 Buckhingham and Jamison PA loop with Shane Blische and Jennifer Berndt

This next hike would end up being a point to point, between Buckingham and Jamison PA.

Buckingham Pa

This would be a sort of last minute plan; I had these days off from work and a schedule that was shifting around a lot, so planning stuff ahead has been rather tough at times. Especially when I had weekday hikes planned, it wasn’t going as smoothly as I’d done it last year. I would just text someone and see if they were available and where I could go for a hike, and typically it would work out. In this case, Pete Wilcox was not available to do what I was planning up in the upper Lehigh Valley PA, so I checked with Shane last minute to see if he was up for something.

Bogert's Tavern

This would fit into my ongoing Neshaminy series, which I’ve not posted a regular weekend hike on in a while. It actually worked out all for the better, because there are some of these routes I’d prefer not to have a large group out for. The previous one had only a small showing, and so I changed the route to include some of the old Reading Railroad’s New Hope Branch, since it would be something where we’d be less visible, less intrusive with the small group.
This time, I chose to do something quite similar by design, because so few were showing interest. I set up a meeting point at the lovely settlement of Buckingham, and arranged for a point to point trip back to there.

Bogert's Tavern

If no one showed up, I would amend that to be a loop instead, and we would simply head back to Buckingham on a secondary route I had planned.

Buckingham wetlands

The aforementioned New Hope Branch was a good choice for the previous hike because it follows such a long distance of the Little Neshaminy Creek, one of the main feeding tributaries. That is on the south side of the Neshaminy Creek at Rushland. North of Rushland, the branch follows another substantial tributary, the Mill Creek. It was the perfect opportunity to follow some of this as well.
From there, I planned to do a bunch of other things I’d been wanting to see, but didn’t get around to with previous groups because there was too much in question.

Buckingham wetlands

And so, I picked up Shane and we headed to Buckingham. No one was around when we got there, and we waited a little bit to no avail. So, the hike would be a loop we figured, and we headed out with that in mind.
First, we headed from town where there was a good lot down toward the old coach stop on 202 that used to be part of the Old York Road.
Bogart's Tavern in Buckingham, which served as a headquarters to General Nathaniel Greene during the American Revolution, was where the order was made for the Durham boats used in Washington's famous Christmas 1776 crossing of the Delaware.

Buckingham wetlands

The building appears to be vacant now on that corner we were walking to, but was a very nice building. There were a lot of nice old ones around in plain sight.

Buckingham wetlands

We crossed over Rt 413 from the tavern, and then walked along the back of the police station. There was a bit of a trail there which kind of surprised me. It continued past the station and onto an improved surface route that continued out into the Buckingham wetlands.
The trail went around the edge of it, and then came out to a nice little pavilion. There were some good wetlands views, but the pavilion had a lot of high stuff around it so there wasn’t much else to see.

Buckingham Station from Johnny Werner collection

We didn’t hang out too long, and continued down the trail which got pretty overgrown. This took us out behind the Buckingham Elementary School.

Johnny Werner Collection at Buckingham

It was overgrown out to the school because the ground was too wet to get a mower through. I commented just that to a maintenance guy we saw walking by when we got to the school.
We went south around the lower end of the school, and then cut out to the left to reach Rt 413, Durham Road.
We turned right on the road and started following it south for a little ways. This eventually took us to the old New Hope Branch, which goes out through some pretty open field to the right.

Greg Pawelski photo of Buckingham in 1988

It was pretty simple walking along the fields, and then out to Upper Mountain Road. There, at Buckingham Valley Station, Shane decided he was going to follow the road.

Buckingham Valley Station

I wanted to have a closer look at the stuff, so I just continued going straight. This took me closer to the old station structure to the left, which was not the original one.

That old Pickering Valley station.

I am told the station that stands there now was originally on a Pennsylvania Railroad branch in the Pickering Valley PA, and that it was hauled to this site for use in the New Hope and Ivyland excursion railroad. It also wasn’t so old, reportedly built in 1968 for another tourist line that merged with the New Hope and Ivyland.
The original station on the site was demolished in 1953.
I headed down the tracks and took only the time I needed to get the photos I wanted. It wasn’t long before I was out in the woods away from anyone and anything.

As I walked, I could hear a whistle in the distance. At first, I assumed that this was just the line further down, where it becomes active as part of SEPTA. I paid it no mind for a bit, and continued walking.

Train passing by

While I was walking, I got a text from Shane just reading “RUN”. There was a train coming, which really isn’t a big deal, but he was concerned about getting in trouble for walking back there.
I hurried off into the woods to the left, and pretty quickly the train was passing by. I managed to get a photo of it going by. If I’d only waited just a little while longer, I would have reached a golf course to the right where I could have gotten the photo of the train from above. I continued on along the tracks to the crossing at Lower Mountain Road, where Shane soon met back up with me.

Tracks

The tracks paralleled Creek Road for a bit, and then turned away. The road turned back and we crossed it after crossing a small tributary to the Mill Creek, which we would soon be following closely.
We were never too far from houses, but no one gave a hard time. There was a lady working out in a yard who warmly greeted us as we walked by.
We headed past several more houses and then crossed New Hope Road. After that we passed through some open farms and crossed over Smith Road. Somewhere in this area, we crossed another tributary.

Dip spot

It was getting really hot out, so we needed to take a dip the first opportunity we got.
This revealed itself in the way of a small bridge over another Mill Creek tributary.

Passenger cars

We descended from the tracks to get photos of the old masonry when we realized that it was deep enough to submerge ourselves a bit, so we took advantage of it.
From there, we continued on along the tracks heading toward Wycombe Station.
As we passed through more open lands, we soon came upon a line of old passenger cars that had been parked there for some time.
Shane I think told me they were former Long Island Railroad cars, and that some of them had been painted to the New Hope and Ivyland look. I was able to climb up to get a closer look inside.

Old rail car

The doors to the things were closed off so that I couldn’t get in, but there was plain view to the insides.
I checked out a few of them and we continued on.
The next point of interest was the historic Wycombe Station. This was an original station to the New Hope Branch. It was quite a lovely one with a pointed tower type section to it.
I had considered Wycombe to be one of the possible places for a lunch stop, at the Publick House, but I don’t think it was open yet. We continued south on the tracks and soon entered a deep cut.

Wycombe Station

The original name for the settlement here was apparently also applied to the station at first: Lingockren. I suppose that must be a German name of some kind.

There was a large old water tank on the left that was associated with the railroad, and to the right there was a series of piers that supported a bridge for a trolley line. I’m not sure the name of the trolley, but I’m sure that Shane does.
He told me that it was like a local popular spot, treated almost like a stonehenge. I got a good look at the piers, but Shane went up to get some better shots of them.
We continued walking south on the tracks, which soon came much closer to the edge of the Mill Creek. I found a tape measure I could use for work on this bit.

Along Mill Creek

The tracks passed a loading area that’s not been in use for some time, where material from the nearby Miller Quarry was brought to the railroad. It looked to me like the structure was ready to collapse right into the tracks.

We continued past here, and soon approached a rather substantial trestle. Shane told me that this was called the Little Italy Trestle. It was one of I guess three substantial bridges on the line (the others being Neshaminy and the one in New Hope). We crossed the bridge, which had to be done quickly in case a train came. I was hearing sounds of cars on the roads and got myself a little freaked out.
There was a remnant of a grade crossing right after the bridge, and apparently a road used to continue through on the other side of the Mill Creek from there earlier on. We just continued along the tracks to the south, and the creek stayed pretty close to the left.

Early photo of Wycombe Station

Shane went off to the deep woods to blow mud, so I decided to take the opportunity to go for a dip in the creek. It was a pretty nice spot, and the water felt great.

Mill Creek

After the dip, we climbed back up and continued south toward Rushland. Swamp Road came in from the left side, and ran close to it. Pretty soon, we were approaching the old station.

Rushland Station

The Rushland Station there was built in 1890 and remains in pretty good shape, although it doesn’t seem to be used. Another building across a lot from it looks like it might have been a separate freight house. Across the road, there was an old box car, which Shane said dated back to the Philadelphia and Reading (the original name) days. It says on one of the websites that the box car was put there to serve as a freight station at one time. It’s sadly in probably irreparable condition at this point.
We headed down Old Sacketts Ford Road next to the tracks and descended to the Neshaminy

Old box car

Creek below the trestle carrying the railroad. We took a dip in the creek, which was great at that point.
We then headed up to the trestle and crossed heading to the south.
My original plan was not to continue on the tracks from here, but to walk to Wilkinson Road where we had come down on the previous one, cover a little of that same distance, and then cover more of the trails at Dark Hollow.
I decided instead that we would double over the railroad section we had done the last time, and then cross the Little Neshaminy Creek to reach Walton Road, which connects with Wilkinson. Walton used to go through, out to the west, but the bridge was destroyed at some point.
We continued on the tracks out to the nice spots we had checked out before, and I watched the aerial images and GPS to see when we were lined up to where Walton Road goes from east/west to north. When we got there, we headed down to cross the Little Neshaminy.

Neshaminy trestle

Suprirsingly, the Little Neshaminy was a bit deeper than expected. It went to over our heads pretty quickly, and we had to put our packs on our heads to get through. We then enjoyed a swim on the Heritage Conservancy property for a bit before we continued on.

Wading

Next, we headed north from the creek. At first, this was okay. We were not very far from Walton Road. However, this got to be quite messy as the slope was much steeper, and we were heading into some really bad weeds. They got to the point of being nearly impenetrable, and we had to push hard to bully our way out and onto the road. This was by far the toughest part of the entire hike.
Once on the road, it was a nice and easy walk up hill and through farm land to the light residential area before reaching Rushland Road. From there, we turned to the left for a bit.

Abandoned Hill Road

There was a driveway we noted on the previous trips that looked as though it might be abandoned, so we tried to follow it out. It turned out that it was a loop driveway to a still occupied house. We headed back the way we came in, and then bushwhacked to the next road over, known as Hill Road on Google Maps.
Hill Road on some maps is shown as going through, but on others that it is a dead end. I knew it must have gone through at one point, and since it was just the two of us, I decided we would try to follow it.
We headed down hill, and we passed one house on the left. Beyond that, the abandoned road continued along a very steep slope above the Neshaminy. It curved inland a bit and crossed over a brook where it was washed out. There must have been a bridge at this point at one time. Beyond that, the road was pretty good again heading down hill. The very bottom of it was used as a driveway for one house down there.
The bottom of the road was the intersection with Dark Hollow Road, which is now a dead end to the right. I was told that there used to be a through truss bridge over the Neshaminy there, but that they had replaced it with a pedestrian bridge.
We walked to the right, and soon came to the pedestrian bridge. There were a few houses on the west side of it, where I had considered going up the road to get into Dark Hollow Park, but then changed my mind.

Neshaminy

We got across the bridge, and then headed up hill on the road on the other side. There is a swath of land that is part of the park that reaches up to the road a bit further, and we’d have an excuse to be there at least. The road on the west side of the bridge as far as I can tell is still private. It looked like there was an abandoned farm up there, so I was interested in seeing it.

We helped a box turtle get across the road, and then made our way down through woods to the creek. Once there, there was a large stockade thing made of pallets. When we looked more closely, there was an old stone chimney inside. Someone, probably playing paintball, used this old cabin site with only the chimney remaining as the base for their fortification.

Turtle rescue

We continued up stream from here, and soon got into the water. The two of us walked upstream through the Neshaminy, which was quite refreshing.

Old chimney

We walked all the way out and around the sharpest bend in the entire creek, for with the name “Neshaminy” comes. It was a native American word meaning “place where we drank twice”, because walking over land leads back down to the same creek again.

Neshaminy

We spotted several ATV paths to the left side of the creek, and I saw some orange ribbons hanging from the trees that the riders use to follow the correct route. I decided we would get out of the creek and try to follow this routing next.
The route took us along the creek through woods, and then up into the farm fields heading parallel up stream.
When we got to a line of trees between fields, I could see some buildings to our left. This was some of the farmstead I’d seen on the aerials I wanted to check out. We decided to have a closer look at it.
On the path, if you want to call it a path, leading in, there were tons of Japanese Wine Berries, so we ate a lot of those. We made our way into the back of a barn building, and then out the front door where we could see there was a full intact farm house and several out buildings. We headed next to the house.
It was a beautiful old two story stone farm house, and it appeared to have been abandoned for a long time. Windows were busted out and it was easy to have a look inside.
The place was completely full of stuff. Filing cabinets, kitchen stuff, pretty much anything you’d see in an occupied house, but badly ransacked. It was one of those creepy places where it appeared that whoever lived there did so in a hurry, without taking anything.
The main frame of the building has water coming through badly. The ceiling is drooping down, and the floor was giving way to the point that soon one would fall through to walk on it. Sadly, the house will probably be demolished, or even more likely, demolished by neglect and then hauled away complete with all of it’s contents.
We exited this area and headed over to some of the out buildings. One looked to be a large barn, but the inside was quite different.
|I was more than a little creeped out by this building. It was full of all sorts of dresses on hangers and what looked like young girl’s pageant stuff. The entire inside was completely remodeled for some sort of theatrics. There was a trophy on the floor that stood probably four feet high, and a few other pieces of furniture. There were very few windows, but one next to a sink had creepy dolls hanging by it.
The place appeared to have no plumbing, but there was a portable commode with a tray under it sitting at one room, and the next room over had two beds in it, in very wide space. This was no someone’s bedroom. It looked like some sort of show area. I recalled at the house I had seen a picture of a girl wearing pageant stuff.
The open floor plan with the beds, the clothing, all the creepy stuff was starting to make me think that this might have been some sort of pornographic filming thing, or maybe something even far more deviant.
The place had been abandoned clearly for some time, so I had no concern that anyone else was being harmed, but the place really gave me the creeps.
We headed out at this point, and then got back into the fields an easier way near this building, which took us back to the flagged off route the ATVs had been using.

We headed into the woods to a point we had been at on a previous hike, where we had climbed up from the Neshaminy onto a trail at the top of a slope. On that occasion, I walked to the field we had just come from and said we’d do it another time. It was nice to have finally gotten to that.
We continued on the path and headed out to power lines. From there, we had to head down them to continue. There is another trail apparently closer to the Neshaminy, but the power line follows it rather closely anyway.

Old York Road stone arch

It seemed at a certain point that we should be up in the woods more. There wasn’t a great trail on the power lines, so we started heading inland. This proved to be a mistake. We ended up going too far up hill, and we just weren’t finding a very good route. I tried to follow my phone GPS, but it was really rough. We ended up coming back down hill, and trying to find our way to the trail. None of this park is really at all maintained, so the trail was next to impossible to get through. It did get better the closer we got toward Mill Road, but there were a lot of trees down over it, and the heavy rains made most of it a mud pit.

Still, we managed to push on through and eventually emerged on Mill Road. To the right of us, the Mill Road Bridge, now abandoned, crossed over the Neshaminy.
The two span through Whipple Truss bridge built in 1888 was closed to traffic in 2011 and never reopened. It's deemed unnecessary because of other nearby bridges, and more recently was closed even to pedestrian traffic. While it is eligible for the National Historic Register, it is more likely that this lovely bridge will be destroyed. It was open to pedestrian traffic for a time, but even that is closed off now by huge fences over it. The official records on this bridge have it marked as “imminent failure”.

We headed down to the creek below the bridge and got in. We had gotten all muddy and sweaty in this last stretch, and it was an absolute necessity.
While there, Jen was heading out to meet up with us for the last portion of the hike. She managed to get to Mill Road and parked at the little parking area just up from the bridge.

My plan originally was for the point to point hike, but then I made it a loop, and Jen’s arrival helped to make it into a sort of point to point with a loop at the end.
We headed back up Mill Road, to where there was a paved trail parallel with it heading further up hill. We had used this on the previous hike. This time, we started following it down hill, also parallel with Mill Road. I figured it would go through to somewhere, but then it just abruptly ended at weeds. The trail had never been finished.
We had to backtrack back up the hill, and then turned to the right to follow another paved trail parallel with School Road.
We turned to the right at the end of School Road and started heading to the Old York Road, an abandoned earlier alignment of the main road which served as the major route between New York City and Philadelphia, laid out between 1711 and 1771 mostly following the historic routes of aboriginal trails.
The road led to a parking area, and then to the historic Eight Arch Bridge, a stone arch bridge constructed for the Old York Road.
"Eight Arch Bridge" was on the route between Jamison and Furlong. Work began in 1801 and was completed in 1804.
Also known as Pettit's Bridge, it was taken out of service in the 1960s when the adjacent highway bridge was completed.
Today, it is open to pedestrian use only within Dark Hollow Park. It was surprising that no one else was around there on such a hot day.
We all went down to below the bridge and took a dip immediately. It was such a relaxing spot.

After this break, we decided to just walk in the Neshaminy Creek downstream all the way back to the Mill Road Bridge. There was a path in the woods immediately to the right, but I didn’t want to count on it being anything good. The last trail, after all, had been a mess. I think on a future Neshaminy series hike we’ll cover some of that, but I’ll wait until some of the vegetation clears off before I make such an effort.

Soon, we got to the Mill Road bridge and enjoyed the water a bit more before Jen took Shane and I back to my car at Buckingham.
It turned out to be a really pretty good trip, and I look forward to the next Neshaminy series hike up stream. It’s looking like there’s a lot more good stuff to see, with a lot more better trails in the near sections including more of Dark Hollow, and then up to Peace Valley Reservoir, which has been on my “to do” list since 2004.

HAM