Explore Ringwood Manor State Park

On my way to the drive-in, I saw a sign for Ringwood Manor estate and wanted to adventure around. The parking is easy and the property was beautiful!

As we walked through the estate, we found:

• a quaint tree forest
• a small cemetery with headstones hundreds of years old
• a river with a small waterfall formed by a stone wall
• a pond full of swans
• gardens with fountains and colorful flowers
• many open fields perfect for a picnic

Of course the house was beautiful, but there were other smaller buildings on the property: like a blacksmith shop, a log cabin and ranch style storage.

When you first enter the property, just follow the road to a small guard house and follow Manor Rd till you get to the parking lot. From here you can decide what you want to look at first, the house or just venture around the property.

We went straight into the small forest of neatly aligned trees and up the stone steps. From there we followed a path that took us past smaller structures on the property. Along the path there was a ledge that we sat on for a bit that overlooked some wildlife.

You eventually come back towards the manor and you can walk through all the yards and gardens with fountains. Take some pictures of the flowers and the sunset lighting breaking through the trees.

Past that, there is an open field perfect for a picnic with a large set of gate doors to the side. Along the grassy field, is a pond. This is where we saw dozens of swans. We got close to the edge and the swans seemed to be interested in us so they swam closer. They seemed to be posing for pictures; it was lovely.

From here we followed the path across the yard that took us to an area with old tombstones and we spent some time reading them.

Keep following the path and you eventually reach another side of the pond. Here there is a stone wall waterfall overlook to the forest. We decided to climb down the hill to get to where the waterfall drops. We crossed the small creek at the bottom and practiced our rock climbing on the stone wall while admiring the quaint waterfall. After we were done, we climbed up the side (now opposite where we entered the falls) and followed along the edge of the pond to take us back to the road where we had parked our car.