AA-2026-E2EE78
On the image
Sherborn, Massachusetts has spent several centuries looking more or less exactly like this, which is either a point of pride or a planning failure depending on who you ask. The split-rail fence in the foreground is the kind of boundary that stopped being strictly necessary sometime around 1890 but was maintained anyway, because in New England a fence is less about livestock than about making clear that someone's family has been here long enough to have opinions about where things go.
The stone-and-timber structure sitting low against the treeline in the middle distance is the sort of colonial-period farmhouse that MetroWest towns like Sherborn quietly accumulated over three centuries and then, in the late twentieth century, began to treat as outdoor furniture — preserved, interpreted, and occasionally signposted. By 2002 the regional preservation impulse was in full swing, and scenes like this one were being documented with some urgency, on the shared assumption that the suburbs were arriving and would not be stopped.
The mowed hillside sweeping up to the right tells you everything about the arrangement: this is working pastoral, managed just enough to read as authentically unmanaged. The whole composition is the product of deliberate maintenance dressed up to look like the passage of time.
Visually related — by likeness
Split-Rail Fence and Colonial-Era Farmstead, Sherborn, MA, 2002. 2002. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-E2EE78. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/split-rail-fence-and-colonial-era-farmstead-sherborn-ma-2002.
@misc{aaAA2026E2EE78,
title = {Split-Rail Fence and Colonial-Era Farmstead, Sherborn, MA, 2002},
year = {2002},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-E2EE78},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/split-rail-fence-and-colonial-era-farmstead-sherborn-ma-2002}
}TY - ART TI - Split-Rail Fence and Colonial-Era Farmstead, Sherborn, MA, 2002 PY - 2002 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-E2EE78 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/split-rail-fence-and-colonial-era-farmstead-sherborn-ma-2002 ER -
From the community
Identifications, corrections, and discussion from readers — reviewed by a librarian before appearing here.
Sign in to add an identification, correction, or comment.
No notes yet — be the first to add what you know about this image.