Historic Mills of Connecticut

Number of Existing Buildings

Five.

Dates of Construction

1980

Housing Types

n/a

Brief Description

The Bradley Edge Tool Company Historic District is located in the Saugatuck River Valley in the Town of Weston. A narrow linear residential district, it extends along both sides of Lyons Plains Road, which lies about 50 feet above the Saugatuck River that borders the district on the west. The residential appearance of the Bradley Edge Tool Company Historic District has changed very little over time. Existing outbuildings have been converted to residential use and a few new houses have been constructed but historic scale is maintained. Historic and modern setbacks are similar because of the terrain. Since the lots on the west side of the district slope steeply at the rear, houses here are sited on the level ground quite close to the road. On the east side, where the slope is more gradual, houses are set into the hillside and somewhat farther back from the road. Some of the historic properties are bordered with low fencing and/or stone walls but more recently, higher privacy fencing has been installed along the roadway, generally on the west side. The majority of houses date from the nineteenth century and were generally built within a relatively narrow time frame the antebellum period associated with industrial development here just before the Civil War. The Gershom W. Bradley House on the east side of the street (115 Lyons Plains Road) has been dated at 1832, but it may have been constructed earlier. The Bradley Edge Tool Company buildings burned down in 1911. According to the historic map of 1867 and several later historic photographs, the factory complex, consisting of at least four separate buildings, was then situated below the dam, bordered on the west by the river itself, and on the east by a long open stone-walled race. Evidence of this race, as well as stone building foundations, is still visible on the site. [NR]