Our Neighborhood

Our Abbey Road Condominium is an 18-unit senior community which has kept the architecture on the two major older buildings and added five Arts and Crafts three unit townhouses. The Dowse Memorial Building, of red brick, built in1914 as Sherborn’s library, has been restored and repurposed as a single family condo. The 1917 house sitting beside the Dowse Library, originally named the Coolidge House, is an excellent example of Edwardian architecture, reminiscent of the work of English Architecture Sir Edwin Lutyens. It was demolished due to structural reasons and a replica was built as two condos. Abbey Road is located adjacent to 24-unit Woodhaven, which is rental senior housing, and Leland Farms, a 17-unit mixed-age condominium community. The town built Woodhaven to accommodate the requests and needs of local residents for a place to downsize and stay in town. Leland Farms was also built by the town to meet housing needs.

 

As you walk out of Village Way, you see in front of you a small, triangular park is located at the split (where routes 27 and 16 diverge) which once housed a 19th century carriage painting shop and later the town post office. Early 20th century photographs of that building show the two tall oak trees, already mature, standing in their present locations.(These are the trees which are now topped, but still used for signs advertising town events).The town purchased the land to honor Sherborn’s men and women who served in World War II. The simple memorial was installed in 1969.

 

On the Abbey Road side of Main Street is the Central Burying Ground, where many head stones of Sherborn settlers dating to the 17th and 18th centuries still remain. The Memory Statue and memorial, which stand close to the street in front of the old cemetery, were donated to the town in 1924 by native son William Bradford H. Dowse (1852-1928) in honor of Sherborn’s 250th anniversary. The memorial is dedicated to Sherborn’s heroes in conflicts from 1676 to 1918. Their names are engraved in bronze tablets set into the stonework. The statue itself, named “Memory,” was sculpted by Cyrus Dallin, who also created “Appeal to the Great Spirit,” the sculpture of an Indian on horseback in front of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

​

Down the street north of the First Parish Church, 11 Washington Street, is the Leland Monument.  The entire inscription reads: "Henry Lealand, The Puritan, Emigrated from the W. of England in the time of the Commonwealth, settled in Sherborne in 1660. Erected by his grateful descendants. Aug. 18, 1847. His piety still remembered is ample testimony to the worth of his character."

​

The same William B. H. Dowse, who donated the Memory Statue, had previously purchased the adjacent Sanger property. In 1914, he donated the Dowse Memorial Library to the town, a handsome Jacobian Revival building designed by Pray, Hubbard and White of Boston, in honor of his parents, the Reverend Edmund and Elizabeth Bowditch Dowse. He built the adjacent Edwardian style house for his sister who was the librarian.(These two buildings are now three condominiums and part of Abbey Road.)The buildings and monuments described are part of a Historic District.

​

Walking: If you turn left (south) when exiting Village Way onto S. Main Street, you will be on Route 27. Cross 27, cross the tip of the land, and turn left onto the sidewalk, continuing south on Rt. 16.Town Hall is the 1910 Center School building, beautifully renovated for its present function. It is part of a campus which also includes the Police Department building and the newly expanded town library, as well as the Sherborn Community Center (the old 1858 Town House), and the Unitarian Universalist Church.

 

Walk into town: If you turn right from Village Way and go north on Rt. 27, which is North. Main Street, you will be able to walk on the sidewalk into town center. Cross the railroad tracks and Cemetery Lane and you will see the fire house on your right and the drug store across the street. A little farther you will see C&L Frosty and the post office. Behind the firehouse, along Cemetery Lane, are the town tennis courts and further along is the playground and the entrance to Pine Hill Cemetery. From Abbey Road, you can easily walk to almost everything in central Sherborn.