Woodstock
Heritage District · Woodstock, Vermont
A village of three thousand people around an oval green in the Ottauquechee valley, with late Georgian, Federal and Greek Revival houses standing on all sides of it and a covered bridge in the middle of town. Ladies Home Journal once called it the prettiest small town in America and Woodstock has been living up to it ever since - partly on its own merits and substantially because Laurance and Mary French Rockefeller spent decades preserving the nineteenth-century fabric, burying the power lines and passing an ordinance to keep the ridgelines empty. It is the county seat, and its economy is tourism.
Central Street, Woodstock, Vermont, 05091, United States
The village is open at all times and free to walk. Shops, galleries and restaurants keep their own hours and most are closed by nine in the evening; several close one or two days a week outside the main season. ⚠ THE FIRST HALF OF OCTOBER IS FOLIAGE SEASON and a village of 3,005 people takes a very large share of New England's leaf traffic - BEDS AND DINNER TABLES BOOK MONTHS AHEAD and parking around the green fills by mid-morning. ⚠ APRIL INTO EARLY JUNE IS MUD SEASON, when much of the valley reduces or closes. Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park is a ten-minute walk away, its grounds are free and open year round, and its mansion tours are seasonal and ticketed. BILLINGS FARM & MUSEUM ACROSS ROUTE 12 IS A SEPARATE ORGANISATION WITH A SEPARATE TICKET.