Talbot Mills Oval

The Talbot Mills Oval, usually called the Talbot Oval, is the small oval green in the middle of Talbot Avenue in North Billerica, just south of Old Elm Street (Elm Street in the deeds) and the Talbot Mills. The avenue divides and runs around it. It covers 34,540 square feet, a little under an acre, and holds a tall flagpole, a flag house and a memorial to Governor Thomas Talbot and the landscape architect Warren H. Manning. It is part of the Billerica Mills Historic District, listed on the National Register in 1983, and of the town's local historic district.

The ground was part of the property of C. P. Talbot and Company, the dyewood and chemical firm of the brothers Charles P. Talbot and Thomas Talbot, whose 1881 plan shows the open land west of Wilson Street as company land. In October 1884 Thomas Talbot and others of the Talbot family conveyed the North Billerica property, "several parcels, water rts, mill privileges &c", to the new corporation, the Talbot Mills. Talbot Avenue was laid out through the mill land in 1894, on land given by the Talbot Mills, and the mills built large double houses for their people along one side of it from 1899 to 1902. The mills retained Warren H. Manning for years to advise them on landscaping, and he designed the planting of the Oval, which the state's historic inventory dates to 1903. His Handbook for Planning and Planting Home Grounds, which the Talbot Mills issued for the householders in 1907, names the plants then growing in the Oval, a varied and labeled collection meant to teach as well as to please. The monthly Billerica magazine noted late in 1912 how carefully the vines had been put back "on the new electric service poles at the Talbot Mills oval." Accounts of the Oval's age differ: the town's 2002 report spoke of "the original pole installed when the Talbot oval was constructed in 1894," and an early state inventory form put its laying out about 1915, which the 1907 Handbook and the 1912 magazine rule out.

The old electric car rails on Talbot Avenue were taken up in 1938, when the town rebuilt the avenue in bituminous concrete "from George Hannon Square to Talbot Mills Oval," and in 1939 the highway men put loam around the Oval and seeded it. The warrant for the 1940 annual town meeting asked whether the town would buy from the Talbot Mills "for the price of $1.00 the Park on Talbot Avenue, known as Talbot Mills Oval", along with the "Cannon" triangle at the junction of Elm Street and Talbot Avenue. The meeting voted a dollar for each, "necessary materials for maintenance to be taken from Parks appropriation and labor to be supplied by welfare recipients." On March 13, 1940 the Talbot Mills, by its treasurer Thomas T. Clark, deeded the town "The land in said Billerica bounded on all sides by Talbot Avenue, containing thirty-four thousand five hundred and forty (34,540) square feet ... being Lot 17 and being marked 'Talbot Mills Oval'" on the company's 1926 to 1927 survey, with the 3,800 square foot triangle, Lot 16; the deed was recorded on December 30, 1940.

A 1941 article to move the artillery piece from "the diamond at the North Village to a place on the oval" was dismissed. During the Second World War the flags at the Common and the North Billerica Oval were kept flying day and night. The park report of 1949 hoped to give the Oval "some long needed attention in the way of relandscaping and reseeding with grass," the work began in 1950, and the report complained that vandals had taken the ropes from its flagpole; a diseased elm beside it was cut down in 1951. In 1967 the town meeting voted $500 to replace the flagpole, and a new pole was put up that year. The Historical Commission listed the Talbot Oval among the town's historic sites in 1969 and 1970.

In 1984 the Historical Commission helped the town apply to the state's Cities and Towns Commons Program for help in rehabilitating the Oval. A $10,000 matching grant from the Department of Environmental Management "to restore the 'Talbot Oval' in North Billerica and to preserve and maintain the same" came in 2000, when the town meeting voted the town's share; in 2001 it added $25,000. A new 100-foot flagpole was set up in 2002, and a flag house was built on the Oval in 2005. The Historical Commission then raised money through community grants for a marker, and on November 11, 2016 it dedicated a memorial to Governor Thomas Talbot and Warren Manning on the northern end of the Oval. The marker was damaged in 2023 and its repair was put in the town's budget. The Parks and Tree Division of the Department of Public Works maintains the Oval.

Deed References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.

References

1. National Register nomination, Billerica Mills Historic District (1983): Talbot Oval (1903), designed by Warren H. Manning
2. Warren H. Manning, A Handbook for Planning and Planting Home Grounds, issued by the Talbot Mills (1907): Billerica Public Library record
3. Annual Reports 1938-1939: Talbot Avenue rebuilt to the Talbot Mills Oval (1938); warrant Art. 17 to buy the Oval for $1.00
4. Annual Reports 1940-1944: Art. 17 voted 1940; artillery piece article 1941; flags at the North Billerica Oval 1943-1944
5. Annual Reports 1945-1949: flagpole repaired 1945; relandscaping of the Oval hoped for 1949
6. Annual Reports 1950-1954: improvements at the Oval begun 1950; flag ropes stolen; Dutch elm removed next to the Oval 1951
7. Annual Reports 1966-1967: $500 voted to replace the flag pole at the Talbot Oval; new pole installed
8. Annual Report 2000: $10,000 match for a state grant to rehabilitate the Talbot Oval
9. Annual Report 2002: new 100-foot flagpole at the Talbot Oval
10. Annual Report 2017: memorial to Gov. Thomas Talbot and Warren Manning on the Oval, dedicated November 11, 2016
11. Annual Report 1984: Historical Commission aids an application to the Cities and Towns Commons Program to rehabilitate the Talbot Oval
12. Annual Report 2001: $25,000 voted for improvements to the Talbot Oval
13. Annual Report 2005: flag house erected at the Talbot Oval
14. Annual Report 2023: the Talbot Oval marker damaged; repair funds in the FY 2023/2024 budget