Old Billerica Road Historic District

Old Billerica Road in northeast Bedford, Massachusetts, is lined with detached single-family houses, a church, old fieldstone walls and rows of mature maples across about 67 acres. The earliest building is the Michael Bacon House, begun in 1671, and later houses include Georgian, Victorian, Colonial Revival, Cape and Modernist designs. The district matters because it records the shift from small family farms to a suburban neighborhood. In the 1860s the Clifton Stock Farm introduced large-scale, professionally managed agriculture serving the Boston market. From the 1890s the Parker family acquired most of the land, holding more than 350 acres by 1911. They ran a dairy herd, greenhouses and a stable of champion trotters, with a half-mile racetrack just north of the district. Their land sales and estates later turned working farmland into house lots. Of the 51 resources counted, 34 contribute to the district's historic character, while newer houses and a church annex do not.