This is a familiar sight to members of my family. It's a former horse farm. The old road went on the other side of the farm and the best part of the ride to town was driving past the farm and looking for the horses in the paddocks. Sometimes you'd get to see someone riding the horses.
The farm belonged to a wealthy family--the Newberry's, who owned a chain of discount department stores called J.J. Newberry's. The daughter, Jessica, was a reknowned dressage rider. Our family also knew that she got pregnant and had an abortion during the 60's. Oh, the scandal! Anyway, this was called East Kiln Farm because one of the charcoal kilns from the 1800's was located here.
These people had so much money that they built a bomb shelter for their horses. Yes, that's true.
Several people tried to make a living having this be a riding place but no one could make it work. Once Jenica and I went riding here. It was pretty queer. First the guy made us learn all about sitting on the horse, lying back on the horse with our heads on it's butt, how to do an emergency dismount, and other stuff you didn't need to know for a regular old trail ride. For some reason I was just terrible on this trail ride and I had an awful time with my horse. It reared and I nearly fell off. I switched horses, and we were cantering back to the barn and my horse put her head down, bucked and I went flying onto the ground. Scary, yet reassuring that you could fall from a horse moving that fast and not get hurt. I was really embarrassed because I took riding in college and did really well.
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