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Heritage Conservancy
Members Photo Contest
Photo by Brian Firth, a winner of Heritage Conservancy's 2016 Members Photo Contest
Sunday, January 15th to Saturday, April 15th
Capture our region's natural and historic heritage! Our 2016 Members Photo Contest winners are featured in our 2017 wall calendar. For this year's contest, we're asking our members to send us their best photos that celebrate our natural and historic heritage in Bucks and Montgomery Counties. Up to twelve winners may be chosen to have their photo included in our 2018 Heritage Conservancy calendar and will be honored at our Garden Party in June 2017.
Must be a Heritage Conservancy member to enter; free to members. Visit our website for a contest entry form or to become a member.
Click
HERE
for more information.
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Historic Nicholas Austin House for Sale
This historic home in Buckingham Township is set for auction
on May 10th!
James and Pamela Gory generously donated the Nicholas Austin House to our organization so that we could use the funds from its sale to further land conservation
efforts in our area.
The building's exterior has a
façade easement on it (placed by
Heritage Conservancy), which ensures
that the Nicholas Austin House is one structure in our ever-changing landscape
that is
here to stay.
To learn more about the house and auction, click
HERE.
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Mulch Madness
Wednesday, April 12th
(Rain date
April 13th)
9:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Aldie Mansion
85 Old Dublin Pike
Doylestown, PA 18901
Join us for a fun-filled and active day mulching the grounds at Aldie Mansion. After the winter, historic Aldie Mansion always needs some sprucing up and a fresh coat of mulch will ensure the grounds are in top shape for the spring and summer ahead.
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He's a Barn Guy
Wednesday, April 26th
6:30 to 8:30 PM
Newtown, PA 18940
Bucks County's history and heritage includes some incredible barns. Many of them stood witness to the American Revolution and the founding of this country. Whether these barns are still used on working farms or reused as houses or offices, they remain relevant guardians of our history. Learn more about these "castles in the field" and about Barn Voyage!, our self-guided driving barn tours of Bucks County, from the barn expert and Heritage Conservancy President, Jeffrey L. Marshall.
Click HERE for more informaton. Free for Heritage Conservancy members, $10 for nonmembers. Please register with us at
215-345-7020 for directions.
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Following the Trail of the Hermit of Buckingham Mountain
Saturday, May 6th
9:30 AM to 11:30 AM
Meet at Aldie Mansion
85 Old Dublin Pike
Doylestown, PA 18901
Heritage Conservancy owns most of Buckingham Mountain, which was once the home of Albert Large, who was known as the Hermit of Buckingham Mountain in the
late-1800s. Botanist Dr. Ann Rhoads will
lead a very exclusive hike up the mountain, identifying rare and beautiful
plants growing there.
$20 for Heritage Conservancy members,
$40 for nonmembers. Boxed lunch served
on the mountaintop. Click HERE for more information, or please register at
215-345-7020.
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Concerts in the Garden
Tuesday, May 23rd
6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Aldie Mansion
85 Old Dublin Pike
Doylestown, PA 18901
Concerts
in
the
Garden
returns in May! E
very 4th Tuesday of
the
month through September, we're opening Aldie Mansion and inviting people to come sit on the lawn and listen to great local musical acts just like Martha Dana Mercer did
in
this same
garden
more than 50 years ago.
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Any time of year is perfect for a wedding at historic
Aldie Mansion!
Visit our
for details.
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Philadelphia Glider Council now listed on Heritage Conservancy's
Register of Historic Places
Heritage Conservancy is pleased to announce the addition of the Philadelphia Glider Council port to its Register of Historic Places. Located in Hilltown, PA, the property is important historically for its use as the oldest continuously operating airport in Bucks County. The Philadelphia Glider Council (PGC) began in 1941, and it has been at its present location since 1944.
Ever the wingless creatures, humans have always looked at flight with a sense of awe and wonderment. Since gliders don't have engines and rely on aerodynamic airflow, flying in a glider is the closest thing to soaring like a majestic bird through the sky. It's what attracts so many to this type of aircraft.
"Whatever cares or concerns or worries we have on the ground--from the moment a glider starts to take off, all the way through the tow and release and then thermalling and soaring around through to landing--all those cares and concerns and worries dissipate and one is left with a sense of pure joy and beauty and lightness," says Beth Taylor, current secretary of PGC, about the feeling that flight provides.
During a tumultuous time in our nation's history, the early founding members of the PGC looked to the skies to take solace from the uncertainty of World War II. Lew Hull (who was also previously a Heritage Conservancy board member), Al Krauss, Joe Agostini, Art Millay, and Dave Bradley brought a passion to fruition and began work on building their glider fleet. In the early days, their planes were all single-seaters, which meant that first flights were all solo!
In 1945, after the war had been won, PGC members hosted their first Thanksgiving Gathering of Gliding and Soaring Pilots. A contest of strengths focused around duration, distance and return, altitude, spot landing, and bomb dropping. Since then, the PGC has continued with contests and is still going strong.
Some of the founding members of the PGC
The PGC has always had a sense of family and camaraderie. Up through the 1990s, founding member Lew routinely set the club's annual flight endurance record. Founding member Joe's son, JL Agostini, is still a member today. The PGC remains a place for pilots and enthusiasts to get together and swap stories about how it feels to have wings.
"My daughter said that she liked places with a clubhouse because having one implies a community, a permanence, a sense of belonging. I agree," says Beth Taylor.
Not only is there a rich aeronautical history and community-centered component to the PGC's port, but it also has strong ties to our regional and national history. According to folklore, the Penn family met with Chief Tamamend to sign the Walking Purchase Treaty on this very property. An archeological dig of the property also found evidence of a Native American settlement.
The PGC's headquarters resides on over 125 acres of green open space. While the property has three hangars, a clubhouse, and a groundskeeper's cottage, its significance is in the history of the airport. The Herr Hangar is the oldest structure on the property, dating back to the 1930s. It is post and beam construction, and it houses two tow planes and several gliders. The PGC houses close to 15 gliders in all.
The Philadelphia Glider Council, as well as any structure that is approved for Heritage Conservancy's Register of Historic Places, is eligible to receive a plaque to acknowledge its historical significance. Heritage Conservancy hopes that this database will educate the community about the history of our area and that it will invoke a sense of pride for the structures that we are fortunate to still have intact. As a result, this historic status will help to encourage stewards of our great heritage.
Please help us further our mission of preserving and protecting our historic heritage. Contact us at 215-345-7020 to learn about submitting a nomination for consideration to our Register of Historic Places.
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Croydon Woods Preserve Cleanups
The Cub Scouts found this perfectly good bouncy ball still intact during their cleanup,
and they are very excited about it!
What a week! On Saturday, March 25th and Saturday, April 1st, Heritage Conservancy held cleanups of Croydon Woods Preserve during these back-to-back weekends.
Croydon Woods Preserve is an 80-acre forested property in Bristol Township, and it is one of the last remaining wooded wetland forests in the region. It provides publically accessible green space in a more developed area of Bucks County. After many cleanups over the past year, it is headed in the right direction, but there is still a lot of work to do.
Cub Scout Pack 132 Bensalem joined us at our first cleanup of the week. The group of 22 volunteers fervently picked up litter and ended up hauling away 75 bags of trash.
Enthusiastic students from East Stroudsburg University at our second cleanup of the week.
Our second cleanup included various groups of volunteers from the around the region. By the end of the cleanup, they had removed 2 mattresses, 10 tires, a couch, an old television, and 50 bags of trash.
That's 125 bags of trash in just two cleanups!
Thank you to all of the compassionate volunteers who participated in these cleanups to help protect the environment and create a wonderful area for the community to enjoy and appreciate nature.
It's important to get kids interested in nature and to understand their role in protecting it;
this mother brought her daughters to help out at our second cleanup.
Waste Management donated a dumpster for trash removal and Keep PA Beautiful provided vests, trash bags, and gloves at both cleanups. These cleanups count toward The Great American Cleanup presented by Keep PA Beautiful.
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Water Quality Testing at Bristol Marsh Nature Preserve
We recently handed over the reins to Hope Bauch, a teacher at Notre Dame High School in New Jersey, and her eager Environmental Club students. With the help of the Silver Lake Nature Center, we trained the students on how to collect water samples at different sites, fix the oxygen to test the O2 levels, and then test the water with chemicals and other tools like a pH meter.
The samplings at Bristol Marsh will help Heritage Conservancy to monitor seasonal fluctuations in the water quality and eventually over time notice any changes that may suggest local impacts to the water quality.
We are excited to encourage this next generation of environmental stewards. Through this work, they can learn about the effects that humans have on the environment.
This project is made possible thanks in part to PA DEP Coastal Zone Management and the William Penn Foundation.
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