Wayside Inn Historic District
The Wayside Inn Historic District is a historic district on Old Boston Post Road in Sudbury, Massachusetts. The district contains nine heritage buildings, including the Wayside Inn, a historic landmark that is one of the oldest inns in the country, operating as Howe's Tavern in 1716. The district features Greek Revival and American colonial architecture. The area was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
The Wayside Inn
Other structures
built a replica and fully working grist mill and a white non-denominational chapel, named after his mother, Mary, and mother-in-law, Martha. Less well known is Ford's attempt to create a reservoir for the Wayside Inn. Across US Route 20 and now secluded in a wooded area behind private homes is a -high stone dam. Dubbed by the locals as "Ford's Folly" the structure failed to retain water because the feeding brook provided insufficient volume and the ground was too porous for a pond to fill.In the grounds of the chapel stands the Redstone School, a one-room schoolhouse which was moved from its original location in Sterling, Massachusetts, by Ford, who believed the building was the actual schoolhouse mentioned in Sarah Josepha Hale's poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb".
The Mass Central Rail Trail—Wayside is a Massachusetts state park forming the northeastern border of the district; the "Wayside" name was selected as the Wayside Inn Railroad Waiting Room was a B&M station at the crossing with Dutton Road.