Hike #1581; Doylestown Loop

Hike #1581: 12/3/23 Doylestown PA Loop with Evan "Joe Millionaire" Van Rossum, David Adams, Professor John DiFiore, Stephen Argentina, Jaqueline Leon, Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Weider, Lynette Rohrer, and Everen

This next trip would be another splendid one in eastern Pennsylvania, which sort of fits in with my series on the Neshaminy Creek and its watershed, but focused a bit more on just the greenways around Doylestown.

There's a lot to see in these areas, and these hikes have been really rewarding in their own way. We were pretty near complete with hiking the bulk of the Neshaminy Creek, although there is of course a lot more to the watershed we have not explored. Still, all of the other stuff in the periphery of this stream is fodder for more amazing hikes.

There was a large parking lot where I think a medical research facility as well as Keller Williams Real Estate was on the south side of Doylestown. I chose that as our meeting point to start heading out.

Although some of what we would be doing was repeating for me, I had planned a whole lot of stuff that would be totally new.

Dave and Stephen weren't on this hike from the start. It was kind of a surprise they both showed up when they did, later into the hike.

It blows my mind that a hike put together to be so simple would find so much interest where we didn't expect it.

This was a really good example of one of those trips where I'd do a whole lot of extra research following the trip on what exactly we were seeing along the way.

We followed the trail from the start, along the edge of the businesses, and then crossed over the northbound lanes of Easton Road into Triangle Park where there is a memorial to 911 victims.

We then crossed over the southbound lanes. This area is soon to change because there are plans to turn it into a roundabout. At that time, it might not be a triangle anymore.

Above us on the west side of the roadw as a beautiful stone manor house building now used as I think the Maria's House Montessori School, or maybe an annex to it.

I of course had to look this place up, using historic atlas maps and the Montessori website.

This house was the Fretz Mansion, built in 1874. It started being used as orphanage in 1907. It is well cared for and quite a handsome building for its use.

It was slightly rainy, but not bad. We got on a pathway that was paved on the north side of New Britain Road. Just as we got a bit down that, I realized I'd forgotten Ev's bottle in the stroller. I may have forgotten his milk as well. I had to go back to get it.

I hurried back across the intersection the same way I'd come, got to the car, got the stuff, and then cut across Easton Road directly, and then through the lot of the Montessori school. I connected with the others again at the access lane from this onto New Britain.

Once I was back with the group, we followed the path along New Britain Road for a bit. It started to turn to the right a bit, but that wasn't where we were going. Instead, we headed straight on New Britain Road, and crossed over the Rt 611/Doylestown Bypass.

We reached Rolling Hills Blvd on the other side, turned briefly to the left, and then turned onto a paved trail that led into the Central Park.

This was a pleasant route that brought us through woods and over some nice rather new boardwalk sections. We emerged at a small pond area that had a wildlife observation blind.

I had hiked through here before, on part of the Neshaminy Creek series. However, I didn't cover much of this rather expansive park at all at the time. We were more focused on following the creek and not much else at the time.

I knew I would eventually come back, because there was always a draw to doing something more solely focused on Doylestown, so this would be it.

From the pond, I decided we would take the long route around it. Most of this hike was about milking as much as we could out of these local parks.

Once almost around the pond, we took a trail to the northwest that brought us across another nice boardwalk bridge section, and out to the Kids Castle, one of the coolest playgrounds in America.

Built in 1997, and inspired by the local Bucks County castle style mansions, such as the nearby Fonthill Castle built by Henry Chapman Mercer, Kids Castle is an amazing collection of narrow passages, slides, netting, and ladders that will keep a child busy for hours.

Kids Castle recently had recently undergone renovation; it was closed the last time we went through, and also I didn't have a son yet at that time.

I was about ready to just continue on without stopping, but Brittany convinced me that we should really stay and check it out.

She was right; the place was completely dead, probably the only time we would ever find this popular playground like that, and the only opportunity we might have to check it out ourselves.

We followed Ev through many passageways of the place, which was really cool. The wood was in good shape, and out of the ordinary for kids playgrounds. Usually, they use plastic or composite material it seems these days.

We went all the way to the top, and I didn't want to encourage Ev to go all the way down the slide from the top. Even I was nervous about that. Brittany went down, and screamed the entire way. It seemed like the ride down was longer than the breath you could exhale screaming.

I decided against going down after Brittany, and walked Ev back to the bottom.

Once we were in the area adjacent to the castle, there was a sort of an electronic action game of repeating and such. This actually looked like a lot of fun. I hung out with Ev at his stroller and put him back in. We watched as Joe Millionaire played the game against members of the group and won each time.

We hung out for a bit here, and then made our way uphill to the west a bit, where there was a nice view down at the playground area.

At the top of the hill, we entered the woods on a footpath to the right a bit. In this area, Lynette, who brought her dog with her, decided to cut out early because it was difficult handling the dog for the distance.

The area to the right of us as we headed into these woods was known as Hart's Woods, of the Heritage Conservancy. I understand there may be more back in there to explore, but we didn't get to that this time.

We made our way uphill to reach a better, surfaced trail that we took through the woods, almost to the clearing on the other side. Just before exiting the woods, we went into more woods to the left on a sort of footpath, but still easy to pass through.

This narrow foot path came out to a paved trail just as it entered the woods.

This was a really sort of cool area, but I also wonder if this was something where there was a ton of grant money to spend.

There were lots of ADA accessible boardwalks to large areas on both left and right side of the trail, each one with a sort of learning activity as the theme at it. It was cool for kids, but I figure the same probably could have been accomplished with some crushed stone surfacing rather than elevated boardwalks for each station.

We continued on this trail until it exited the woods. Back in the open, we reached a paved trail intersection where we turned to the left. This brought us out to near the disc golf course area, and a parking lot access off of Wells Road.

We continued across a parking area, and then back onto the trail in the park that closely parallels Wells Road. We followed this for just a bit on the south side of the soccer fields until a side trail broke off ot the right.

We followed this trail across Wells Road, and then skirting development just above the floodplain of the Neshaminy Creek.

There were side trails to the right that went to the dead ends of streets in the development, but the first two streets were immediately adjacent to the trail. 

One of these roads, Sunrise Drive, had an historic home at the end of it, with stone components and obviously different than the other houses seen from the trail.

The historic 1876 atlas of Bucks County notes this as the Patterson Farmstead.

We continued along the trail and ended up out in the edges of meadows closer to the creek. The walking was still pretty pleasant through this area.

We continued through more woods, and then emerged in more meadows again, in what is known as Neamand Park.

We continued around the outside of this park, still parallel with the new developments, but closer to the Neshaminy Creek. 

There is a small business plaza building to the north of this point, where the trail skirts around the outside. We headed toward that, on the route we had taken on the previous Neshaminy hike, but this time we came upon a huge section of trail inundated by water.

It wasn't raining heavy, but there was no way of going through this without getting our feet wet. I, of course, didn't mind it one bit, and I pushed Ev's stroller right on through it without a problem.

A small tributary flows beneath the trail in this area, at a turn through a line of trees. However, the culvert beneath the trail was completely backed up.

A pond of water was up to almost trail level at the culvert, and just to the south of it, the stream was flowing over into the trail and adjacent fields. This was the cause of all of the flooding we had come across.

I could see the pipe just across where it was supposed to be draining to, but not much was coming out of it. I tried lining it up with the other side, and we took turns with sticks trying to get it cleared.

After most of us had given up, Joe Millionaire was still trying to get it cleared to no avail.

We eventually moved on along the trail, past a couple more development roads, and along an area historically known as Island Field. In the development to the left, which had a cul de sac, another original farmstead of William Patterson still stands.

To the right, a bridge that certainly predates the developments, which crosses the little tributary.

We continued on the paved trail until it came out to the Rt 202 Parkway Trail. We turned to the left across Lower State Road, then to the right to cross Rt 202. The trail then left to the left along the southbound 202.

I had done hikes that covered much of this trail in the past, and had almost done all of it, but there are a lot of things that break off of it. We would use this bit of it to connect to those.

The southbound was actually more west at this point, and we began walking that for a while. There was a nice spot on the right, where there was a nice little pavilion with a picnic table.

We took a really nice little break there, and there was a side trail from that into the woods onto a trail system associated with the Delaware Valley University's equestrian center.

I figured we ought to hike these one of these days as well, but my plan this time was to continue west a little more. I already had a plan that I didn't want to deviate from very much.

While we were taking this break, Stephen Argentina contacted us about meeting up with us very soon. He was in touch with Justin earlier, and got to the area, and he was at this point very close by.

I suggested that he come from Almshouse Road I think it was, the next road crossing, and he would be able to find his way to us pretty soon.

We started moving ahead to the west, and I think Stephen met up with us on the 202 Trail. We continued from there, across Almshouse Road on the road bridge, and then continued to the west.

At a point when the trail turned to the right away from the highway a bit more than usual, we turned to the right on a mowed path around what might have been a little retention pond or something. My plan was to skirt the edge of a field to the right to get to something that Google maps had noted as a "jeep trail". It was a little too mucky in the current conditions to get through the way I had been planning to go on the east side of the fields, so we returned to the field edge next to the trail for just a bit longer.

Soon, there was a path that went directly north, across the middle of the field, more well worn by farm equipment traveling over it. We followed this to the north side of the field, then to the right along the tree line to an opening between the two fields.

At this point, we had reached what was shown as the jeep road. We continued on this through to the next field, through along the west side of it to a point close to a water treatment plant. We turned right there, uphill for a bit. This brought us to the top of a hill and through a few trees, with some views of the farmland around.

A short distance more from here and we reached Almshouse Road again. Directly on the other side, the jeep road continued along the field edges.

When the jeep road started to turn to the right, we continued straight on a path through the woods that I wasn't expecting to come across. 

Dave was meeting up with us soon, and he parked somewhere near Delaware Valley University. He also picked up some sort of strong booze, I think honey whiskey, at our request.

Somehow, Dave was just below us to the west, walking on Shady Retreat Road, while we were above him in the woods.

We continued on through these woods and eventually came back out to fields. When the jeep road turned to the right, back out toward Farm View Road, we continued to the left and then right through the middle of more cultivated fields, heading sort of directly to the Frank Wolfgang Baseball Field of Delaware Valley University.

We were walking directly toward the dugout area when Dave appeared at the field edge. We got through the rougher, muddy field area and out to the edges, and we all continued to the right for a bit.

It was a perfect spot to have a break, in the dugout area with the roof. We were able to sit out the bad part of the rain when we got to that spot in perfect timing.

We continued out toward the railroad tracks to the north from here, and then turned right parallel with them along more ball fields.

The line was built as a branch of the North Pennsylvania Railroad, opened October 7, 1855. It was leased to the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in the 1870s and remained a separate company under lease until it, along with the entire Reading Railroad went to Conrail in 1976. It became part of the SEPTA system in the 1980s, and is today its second busiest branch.

The line was among the earliest of the Reading controlled lines to be electrified, in 1929.

We continued to the railroad station stop, then turned left to cross the tracks to the main Del Val University area and parking lot for the station.

The Delaware Valley University started as the National Farm School in 1897, and Reading Railroad named this stop "Farm School". Riders today simply refer to it as "Del Val".

The school was founded in 1897 by Joseph Krauskopf, a Philadelphia rabbi.
Krauskop was encouraged by famous writer Leo Tolstoy to build a farming School for Jewish immigrants similar to those in Russia. Doylestown was chosen for its fertile ground in the great Neshaminy Watershed, and because of convenient access to Philadelphia by rail.

The school expanded it's areas of study and became the Delaware Valley College of Science and agriculture in 1960, and finally Delaware Valley University in 2015.

We headed to the north just a bit, then to the right into the campus area. Pedestrian walkways took us through the campus past the Student Center, Cook Hall, Work Hall, and Centennial Hall.

Next to the college campus, Business Rt 202 has a similar path beside it as the one we had been on previously. I had hiked along some of this on path hikes, some of them going back many years, but never did the entire length. This time, we'd cover quite a bit more of it.

We came out to the edge of the highway near the Life Sciences building, and then turned to the right to follow along the paved pathway. This took us again across Almshouse Road.

Next, we crossed on and off ramps to the 611 Doylestown Bypass on crosswalks, and then crossed the highway itself just beyond. There were cut outs of walkers and cyclists on the chain link fences crossing the bridge.

We continued from here toward town, crossed Progress Street, and then reached Memorial Drive where the walkway along the road pretty much ended. We turned slightly right and walked parallel with the road through the lands of the War Memorial Fields.

The road became State Street, and we continued to follow it to the east through town. We found a nativity setting along the way, and had to pose Ev for a photo in it.

This was my first time walking right into the main downtown of Doylestown, and I was taking in all of the sights. Everyone was getting hungry, and we needed to figure out where we were going to stop to eat.

We decided on the Main Street Marketplace, which is basically a small-scale indoor mall right in the heart of Doylestown. It was actually a pretty nice place with several establishments inside, but also some chairs out in the common area where Ev could run around without being much of a disturbance, and we could relax.

Ev was really getting into Christmas at this point, and he was running around and checking out the Christmas tree at the end of the corridor. He'd been really into Santa Claus and everything to do with Christmas, and the area is perfect for that.

I don't remember what I had to eat. Probably a burger and fries or something. Ev usually will share some of that with me, so I'd been keeping my meals rather simple so he would enjoy them too.

We left he place and then had a very nice walk to the left, right up into the heart of historic Doylestown. I soon realized I could do an entire hike again, focusing more heavily on the historic sites of town.

Just as we were leaving our lunch, my brother Tea Biscuit and his wife Amanda, who at the time was very pregnant with their daughter, showed up to say hello to us. I had assumed that Tea Biscuit might join us to hike for a bit, but they were just in town looking around for books. Amanda is a famous author, so she's always looking for inspiration and whatnot.

The town was founded by Irish settler William Doyle, who established a tavern in the center of town in 1745.

The town grew through the 1800s, and ousted Newtown as County seat in 1810 through petition.

As we headed to the north, to the right was the former Hart Bank Building, built in 1858. It was one of the town's first banks, with lovely columns. There was also a handsome stone structure that I couldn't find any information on when reading the town's historic walking tour.

There was a nice obelisk in the very middle of the town as we reached that point. This was the Civil War Memorial, erected in 1867. It is known as the 104th Pennsylvania Monument.

We had to keep to the right at that monument, on Court Street, to head east. One of my main goals on this hike was the incorporate the historic tour of Fonthill Castle, and we were running late for the last tour.

As we walked the street, there were good historic markers at many of the significant structures. One of these was the W H Davis House.

In addition to being a Civil War general, Davis was a statesman, author, lawyer, and acting governor of the territory of New Mexico.

In 1880, he founded the Bucks County Historical Society. Davis was a resident here for 51 years. The section of Court Street whee it was located is sometimes called "Lawyer's Row".

Soon, we approached  the Doylestown  parking garage which is the site of the old Doylestown High School.

The School burned down in 1973, but the plaque with 1889 date is affixed to the stair enclosure on the corner of the parking area.

We continued east through town, and passed by some very impressive, giant trees.

On the left side of the road, we passed the historic Doylestown Presbyterian Church, constructed in 1871.

The Presbyterian congregation in Doylestown has been active since 1804. Their original academy building was located where the Doylestown Parking Garage is today. The original building was replaced by the high school in 1889, the aforementioned building that burned in 1973.

The first official church was erected on the same site as the current church in 1815. The cemetery was established about the same time.

We continued a bit further down the road, and crossed over to the church side to walk through a bit of the cemetery. Back on the right side of the road from us was the historic residence of Casimir Sienkiewicz, banker, economist, who served in many capacities as a civic leader including US House of Representatives, Federal Advisory Council, and the first chairman of the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA).

We walked through about a block of the Doylestown Cemetery, which was just a little further down the road, and then had to get back on Court Street for a block before getting to the property of Fonthill Castle.

We turned to the left down the access road, a pretty lane lined with trees, and the amazing structure began to come into view.

The incredibly unique building was home of archeologist, anthropologist, master ceremicist, scholar, and antiquarian Henry Chapman Mercer.

The structure was designed as a showplace for Mercer's Moravian Tiles he produced during the American Arts & Crafts movement.
Mercer acquired an old farm, which already had a two story stone homestead built in 1800.

From 1908 to 1912, his masterpiece home was framed around the original masonry building of which little is still visible.

The unique building is an amalgam of arts and crafts, Medieval, Gothic, and Byzantine architecture. The interior has my obvious asymmetrical layout adorned with tile and ceramic designs, imagery, and text. 

Decor is a mission of the aforementioned art as well as items from Mercer's travels around the world.

Upon his death in 1930, Mercer left his home in trust as a museum of decorative tiles and prints.
Tours are conducted today by well versed and passionate interpreters.
It is a must see for fans of history, art, architecture, and oddities.

My first experiences with the site were from just driving by it, and saying "one day I'll plan a hike that'll go there". I just never got around to organizing that hike until this time.

The previous Christmas season, Jillane planned to visit the castle with Ev and I, and I was quite happy to go and get a look at it, since it was on my "to do" list for so long.

We were fortunate to have a late tour, where I had the opportunity to discuss so many of the nuances of the building with the interpreters on hand that day.

The theme of that first visit I took was I recall Christmas trees around the world or something. There was something similar to that this time as well.

I recall that there was some sort of mix up, and we ended up getting me in the place for free.

We had to wait in the visitor center after ordering tickets and such, and then walked over to the main building to pass through on the guided tour.

Some of the tour is through corridors and is directly through, while other areas we have to walk in and come back out another way because there is no way out.

Interpreters are stationed in different rooms along the way.

I always learn a lot from these things, but this time it was much more of a distraction than it was my previous visit. I'm certain the red stuff that Dave brought had something to do with it, among other things.

Of course, Ev was going to run around like crazy. He was on foot almost the entire time in the place.

Fortunately, the others were very helpful in watching him because one person trying to keep him in line is getting to be quite the task.

The main study area of the place was particularly interesting, and I also really enjoy just looking at the ceilings in the place.

One of the things I got from the interpreters in this one was the fact that not all of the tiles were the work of Mr. Mercer. Much of it was from his personal collection of different tiles from all around the world.

In addition to being a manufacturer, Mercer was also quite the collector. He was an art collector, book collector, and "wannabe poet" according to one of the interpreters. They said he wanted to write like Edgar Allen Poe. He apparently wasn't that great because he's never been known for that work.

We got through the entire tour, and then reached the large corridor in the front, where we came down the stairs and the tree was prominently on display.

We made our way from here over to the visitor center area and such. I had to leave the stroller in there of course, because it would not have fit through the corridors in the place. The people at the desk were good enough to look after it for me while we walked through.

We used the restrooms here one last time before we had to be on our way. I wanted to get some then and now compilations of the site, but it was getting a bit too late, and I figured I could come back another time to get them since the place is pretty accessible.

From the castle, I had a pretty interesting route planned for the remainder of the hike, but it was already getting dark. I really enjoyed it a lot, because it felt like I was back to organizing night hikes.

In fact, the way I put together this section, and the changes I made to the trip on the fly, was very much like the night hikes of old I'd arranged.

We walked out the main entrance road to Fonthill Castle through the lines of trees, and then came back out to Court Street. We turned left on that just briefly, and then right onto Belmont Court.

Belmont Square was at the intersection, a loop road we would take form that point to the south. I can't remember if I made a wrong turn or not going around this, but I do recall something wasn't quite right. No matter, we still got to where we needed to be next, which was the Linden Elementary School on Linden Avenue.

I'm pretty sure we came into the Linden School from the south, because that is where the paved trail descends downhill beyond it, which was part of my plan.

This paved trail led out to Creek Road and ended, and we turned right. The pleasant road came to Forest Drive, and we turned right. That brought us out to East Street. We turned left a short bit and reached State Street.

Directly across State Street was Chapman Park. It had some improved surface trails through it, and we crossed to follow them a bit. We took a short break in the park so that I could go over the map and make sure we didn't make a wrong turn.

Another Neshaminy tributary begins in this area, known as the Kerr Spring. We walked the nice path, which took us through a swath of woods and down across a little foot bridge. We then emerged in another part of the park near their volleyball courts.

We continued to the left through the grass, behind different ball courts, and then toward their swimming pool. It was my hope that we could pass through here and cut along the Doylestown Country Club property.

When we got around the side of the Fanny Chapman Memorial Pool, there was not a way of walking around it in a clockwise fashion. There were fences and slopes that I couldn't do with the stroller.

We walked back out and around, and came out McKinstry Drive. This brought us uphill and past a beautiful old stone house. From there, we turned left on Golf View Road.

This was a gamble; I wasn't originally planning on going this way, but I figured it might be a way of getting us through. It was almost Winter, and dark, and no one was playing golf.

We followed the road along the golf course, and then I decided we would just cut downhill through the course to get out to Green Street.

It was a really pleasant walk through the golf course, downhill, and then to the right to head into the main golf club entrance. We must have passed through the maintenance building and then directly out to the road.

We turned on Green, and then made our way to Clemens Road. We turned, and reached Meadow Lane. There, we turned to the left for just a bit, then right onto another extension of Clemens Road.

There were buildings on the left, and I cut through some lots and across grass to get out to Main Street a bit sooner than I would have otherwise.

We turned left on Main Street from here, to the south. Along the way, we skirted an apartment complex and used the sidewalks of that in order to make for a better walk to the south.

We passed by Wawa, and I can't remember if we went in and got anything at that point, but it wasn't that much farther to where we were parked from there.

Main Street changed to Easton Road, and we soon crossed over busy Rt 202. The only choice from here was to continue following the shoulder, which was big enough to walk, south.

Pretty soon, the paved trail started off along the left side of the road, the north end of the one we first started the day along.

We crossed over one of the entrance roads and were soon back at the cars. It had been a really fun time and we saw a whole lot of great stuff.

Justin, Brittany, and Stephen stayed there a bit to get some food at the Wawa, and after hanging out a bit, I headed back with Ev to finish out the night.

The hike was over, but I would spend time between caring for Ev and working and such during the week to follow just reading into the history of all of these place we had visited along the way.

It was really a fun time in retrospect, and sharing everything I found out through Metrotrails just allowed this hike to give back more to me and to everyone following along.

There is still so much more to see through that area. My original plan had been that we would have walked through more of the Fonthill Park and Fonthill Woods, and more of the Doylestown Cemetery.

We can easily get another hike out of simply visiting the historic sites all around town. I still haven't really gotten a good look at the railroad station yet, and that too was something I had planned to do this time but never got around to it. Each trip seems to afford more opportunities to explore beyond anything I was expecting.