Dell Hollow Road
Dell Hollow Road is a short dead-end street in Riverdale, running northwest from Sylvan Road. Until about 1992 it was Dell Avenue. It was laid out as "Dell Ave." on "Camp Lots at Riverdale, Billerica, Mass.," drawn by Edgar P. Sellew, civil engineer, on March 19, 1908 and recorded on May 21, 1908 (Plan Book 25, Plan 12), his plan of smaller lots for summer camps beside the farm lots of his first Riverdale plan of 1903. On it Dell Avenue curves west from Sylvan Road between lots 62 and 65 to 68, near where Pine Road, now Ravine Road, also leaves Sylvan Road. A dell is a small wooded valley; the plan does not explain the name. The oldest house now on the street, 5 Dell Hollow Road, was built about 1945 according to the assessors.
Dell Avenue stayed a private way; the highway department graded it in 1981. It became Dell Hollow Road in the years when the selectmen were renaming streets "to eliminate duplication of names," and the town then also had a Dell Road and a Delle Avenue, but the change is not recorded in the town reports: the registry of deeds indexes documents on "Dell Av" through August 1992 and on "Dell Hollow Rd" from November 1992. A subdivision plan of land on Dell Hollow Road and Battcock Road drawn by Noonan and McDowell, Inc., on November 16, 2006, approved by the Planning Board on April 18, 2007 and recorded on July 31, 2007 (Plan Book 224, Plan 128), labels the street "Dell Hollow Road (Private - 30 ft wide) (F/K/A Dell Ave.)" and Ravine Road "F/K/A Pine Road." The origin of the word Hollow in the new name has not been found.
At the fall town meeting session of October 3, 2019 the town voted 165 to 5, under Article 39, to accept "Dell Hollow Road, from Sylvan Road to dead end, approximate length 470' and 30' width right of way," as shown on an "As Built Dell Hollow Road Plan Profile" by Noonan and McDowell, Inc., dated January 5, 2009, together with Sylvan Road and other streets of the neighborhood.