NEWTOWN SQUARE, PA — Willistown Conservation Trust will acquire and permanently protect 20 acres of land in Chester County with $1.75 million in state and county grants, expanding Rushton Woods Preserve and creating new connections between publicly accessible conservation areas.
The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources awarded $1.5 million toward the purchase of Friends Meadow, a property owned by Willistown Friends Meeting. Chester County committed an additional $250,000 through its 2026 Open Space Preservation and Park Improvement Grants.
The state funding was announced October 7 by Gov. Josh Shapiro and DCNR Secretary Cindy Dunn and comes from Pennsylvania’s Keystone Recreation, Park and Conservation Fund.
The acquisition will expand Rushton Woods Preserve while extending hiking and equestrian trails toward the neighboring Kestrel Hill and Kirkwood preserves.
The 20-acre property includes open fields, forested areas, and a headwater tributary of Ridley Creek. Its permanent protection will preserve natural habitat and watershed resources while preventing future development of the site.
The transaction follows years of discussions between the conservation trust and Willistown Friends Meeting, whose historic meetinghouse, built in 1798, stands adjacent to the property.
The acquisition will also provide additional protection for the meetinghouse’s surrounding landscape.
“Friends Meadow will bring our preserves closer to being one connected landscape,” said Kate Etherington, president and executive director of Willistown Conservation Trust.
The property has historical significance extending beyond the meetinghouse. According to the trust, the Okehocking band of the Lenni Lenape historically hunted and gathered food in the surrounding fields and forests and fished in Okehocking Run, the stream running through the landscape.
The purchase is part of a broader land conservation effort by the trust, which has added more than 100 acres to its preserves in less than five years.
Those acquisitions have expanded its holdings to nearly 400 acres of permanently protected, publicly accessible land.
The organization is now prioritizing connections between its existing preserves and the long-term maintenance of those properties, an approach intended to create a more continuous network of conserved land and recreational trails.
Additional information about Willistown Conservation Trust and its preservation projects is available at https://wctrust.org/.
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