Birch Grove Park in Northfield, NJ: Your October Guide
October 8, 2026
October 8, 2026
On the wooded trails off Burton Avenue, pieces of old brick still turn up in the leaf litter. They come from the Somers Brick Company, which once made an average of 80,000 bricks a day on the land that is now Birch Grove Park. The company ran eleven kilns and a small railway to haul clay and finished brick around the site.
The bricks are long gone, but the holes the company dug are still there, and in October they matter more than at any other time of year. Most of what fills the park this month never appears on the city's recreation calendar. The October and November listings mention no hayride, no fishing derby and no museum program. Even so, the fall trout stocking, the hayride and the museum's open hours all happen here. They are run by the state, the volunteer fire company and the historical society, and each one depends on what the brickyard left behind.
Clay was found here in 1847. Hubert Somer bought about 300 acres, ran a lumber operation first, and by 1900 the site was the Somers Brick Company. Workers dug 21 large pits to get at the clay. When the Great Depression closed the brickyard, nobody was left to keep the pits dry. Springs and rain filled them, and trees and wildflowers grew in around them. A 2024 Shore Local history counts 21 ponds on the property today, one for each pit.
In the early 1950s, Northfield Recreation Commission member "Inky" Breunig pushed to turn the old brickyard into public land. The city bought it and held a contest to name the park, and the winning entry was "Birch Grove Park."
None of this is just trivia. Every October event below happens on, beside or because of those flooded pits.
The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife's 2026 Freshwater Fishing Digest lists Birch Grove Park Ponds among Atlantic County's trout-stocked waters. It also flags them for fall stocking, which the digest says takes place in October. Hammonton Lake is the only other Atlantic County water carrying that fall mark on the same list. Absecon's Heritage Pond and Galloway's Patriot Lake are stocked in spring only. For anglers in the Northfield area, that makes Birch Grove one of only two places in the county where fresh trout go in this month.
The "(3)" next to the listing is easy to misread. In the digest it means three expected in-season spring stockings. It does not mean three ponds. For weekly stocking details, the state runs a Trout Hotline recording at 609-940-7266.
Trout aren't the only fish here. An NJ Audubon site guide lists sunfish, crappie, yellow perch, catfish, pickerel and largemouth bass among the catches at the ponds. The same guide describes waterfowl and migrating birds around the water in fall.
Before you cast:
The city's one organized fishing event this year was a youth "Hooked on Fishing - Not on Drugs" challenge on June 6. In fall, the ponds are just stocked water, open to anyone with a license.
The Northfield Volunteer Fire Company brought back a fall hayride at Birch Grove Park in 2025. The city had run a family hayride there years earlier, but it ended before the COVID-19 pandemic. Finding big enough wagons was the first hurdle. Tony Darpino of Victory Farms solved it by donating two matching wagons from the farm's own rides. Hayride proceeds go to repairs and maintenance at the firehouse.
The 2026 Not-So-Spooky Hayride runs over two weekends, double last year's schedule. The fire company's flyer lists October 16, 17, 23 and 24, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $12 for adults and $8 for children, and the evening includes truck tours and s'mores. The 2025 version ran just two nights with a rain date. This year's flyer gives no rain date and no age cutoff for the children's price, so ask the fire company before you go.
You won't find the hayride on the city's recreation calendar. It is listed on the Atlantic County Firefighters' Association's date-clearing calendar.
Most of October's Birch Grove calendar sits on one short stretch of road. The firehouse is at 1475 Burton Avenue, the park entrance at 1675, and the museum at 1700.
The museum is the one stop on this list that tells the park's own story. Curator Roy Clark oversees displays on the Casto family, local schools, the city and the park itself. That includes how the Somers brickyard became woodland. The Northfield Historical Society raises money for the museum and Casto House, and the City Cultural Committee maintains the building. The committee also says it welcomes volunteers.
Most of Birch Grove's rules exist because of the water. Here is the city's wording:
No person shall enter into or onto or access by or through any means whatsoever any water body within the confines of Birch Grove Park, either in a liquid or frozen state, for any reason whatsoever.
The same section of the Northfield city code spells out what that covers: swimming, wading, boating, kayaking, ice skating and ice fishing. The "frozen state" wording will matter again in a couple of months.
Two other rules catch first-time visitors off guard:
The park is open every day of the year from dawn to dusk. Daylight gets shorter through October, and by the hayride's second weekend the trails close earlier than many summer walkers expect.
The city doesn't publish an official trail map or mileage count. Its park page describes nature, exercise and jogging trails, plus picnic areas, a playground and seasonal fishing tournaments. AllTrails maps a "Birch Grove Park Loop Trail" as an easy 1.5-mile loop. A 2022 Ocean City Sentinel report described a much larger network, with about 10 miles of walking trails and 8,200 feet of marked bike trails. That count is now several years old. A South Jersey Trails writeup describes loops that connect between the ponds and a covered bridge along the way.
The flooded pits are the reason there are so many loops. The trails wind between and around them, and walking past the water is how most of the park's routes work.
Two park projects are moving at City Hall this year. In January 2026, the city voted to rebid a state Local Government Recreation Grant project after the first bids came in over budget. The rebid covers new parking: a base bid for 11 spaces and an alternate for 21, with clearing, grading and stone surfacing. The public record shows the bidding, not finished construction, so plan hayride parking around the lot as it stands today. A May 2026 city work session also reported upgrades at the park bandstand, including electrical work.
If you want dinner after an evening on Burton Avenue, Chico & Sons at 1620 Tilton Road has new owners as of January 1, 2026. They kept the existing staff and added dinner entrées to the menu.
Northfield homeowners who know the park as well as they know their own street are the people The Scott Reighard Real Estate Team likes to work with. If you're curious what your home near Birch Grove is worth this fall, get your free home valuation and we'll walk you through the numbers.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
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