Following a bequest from John Wolbach, a long-time Sudbury resident and Sudbury Valley Trustees (SVT) member, Wolbach Farm has been SVT’s headquarters since 2004. John’s wishes were to preserve the land “predominately in its natural, scenic and open condition.”

His parents had purchased what was then primarily a dairy farm in the 1910s and converted the property into a gentleman’s farm. During the Great Depression, the Wolbachs and the neighboring Newton family employed people to plant red pine, Norway spruce, and eastern hemlock in previously pastoral areas and around the house and barn.

Wolbach Farm is part of the larger Great Meadows ecosystem along the Sudbury River, much of which is owned and managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. The 0.75-mile main loop of the George Lewis Memorial Trail (named for an SVT founder) takes you along a stream corridor, across a wetland, and then back through the woods to the small field adjacent to the main house. The 0.2-mile inner loop goes around a wetland and returns to the main loop. The outer loop features a Story­book Trail with a new children’s book each season to engage younger hikers as they walk. The rain garden, butterfly garden, and bird garden on these grounds were created as part of an Ecological Landscaping Demonstration Project.

The AllTrails website has a description and map of a hike at Wolbach Farm.