Riveredge Road

Riveredge Road runs southwest from Nashua Road in West Billerica along the east bank of the Concord River, through the summer colony of Queensland. Its name describes it: the lots between the road and the water front on the river, and the road follows the edge of the river for most of its length.

The road was laid out on paper in 1928. The "Plan of Queensland on the Concord, Billerica, Mass., developed by the Linn Realty Service, Inc., 251 Harvard St., Brookline, Mass.," drawn by R. F. Smith, surveyor, of Boston Road, Billerica, and dated December 1928, was recorded on May 3, 1929 (Plan Book 53, Plan 73). It shows Riveredge Road running from the "Chelmsford Road," as Nashua Road was then called, near its bridge over the Concord, with Maybury, Belva, Judkins, Sumner and Breen Roads and Pauline and Johns Roads branching from it between the river and Outlook and Queensland Roads. Further Queensland plans followed in 1928, 1929 and 1944. No road on this line appears on the older maps.

At first it was a private way serving cottages. In 1935 and 1936 the school committee paid for transporting children from "River Edge Road." Articles of 1939, 1940 and 1941 asked the town "to accept in part Riveredge Road in West Billerica, in the section known as Queensland, namely 1500 feet from the highway known as Nashua Road," without result. In 1946 the town voted six street lights for the road, and at the annual meeting of February 8, 1947 it voted to "accept the laying out of Riveredge Road as a town way in accordance with the report of the Selectmen"; the town's list of accepted streets gives 2,150 feet.

The road was first surfaced in 1949, when it was "graveled, scraped, tar penetrated and sealed entire length." Water mains were brought out by way of River Street, Treble Cove Road and Nashua Road in the 1950s, and the town spent $3,800 on "drainage and repair of Riveredge Road, at junction of Nashua Road" in 1960. Several of the side streets of the Queensland plan, Breen Road, Heron Lane, Outlook Road, Pauline Road and Westcott Road among them, were laid out and accepted as public ways in 2023. Riveredge Road was not among the roads of the 1831 map accepted by town meeting in 2016.

References

1. Billerica annual report 1936: school transportation paid for River Edge Road
2. Billerica annual report 1946: vote to install six street lights on Riveredge Road
3. Billerica annual report 1947: town accepts the laying out of Riveredge Road as a town way
4. Billerica annual report 1949: Riveredge Road graveled, tar penetrated and sealed entire length
5. Billerica annual report 1956: streets accepted by the town, Riveredge Rd. 2150 ft., 2-8-47