Linden Lane

One of the most beautiful drives in Portsmouth is up Linden Lane toward the Leonard Brown House and then the Polo Field.   It is named “Linden Lane” for the stately old linden trees that line the drive.

Older Portsmouth maps do not show a driveway or path there.  When the property was owned by Cook Wilcox his house was close to East Main Road.  The property was passed down to Sarah Wilcox Brown after she married Leonard Brown.  They tore down the Wilcox home and built their home further up – the restored home we know as the Leonard Brown House.  The diary of a local carpenter, George Manchester, dates the building of the house to around 1850.  When Leonard Brown died the property was sold to H.A.C. Taylor and added to Glen Farm.  It was Taylor that added the linden trees.  A 1904 gardening journal reports:

“The walls have been curved at the entrance to give the driveway a better effect, and on both sides of the drive, from the road to the Taylor mansion, young linden trees have been put out to make the way ornamental as well as shady. V.A. Vanicek, of the Rhode Island nurseries, furnished the trees and also six car loads of hardy rhododendrons for Mr. Vanderbilt’s Oakland Farm.”

Hurricanes have damaged the trees and there are gaps in the stately rows of lindens, but Linden Lane is still beautiful to behold.