Walking tours | ![]() |
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A stroll on a beautiful day is often the best way to see and learn about a community. Whether you're interested in exploring Roxbury's colonial beginnings, its recent happenings, or future ambitions, our walking tours and resident guides will entertain and inform.![]() Explore Roxbury’s early origins from a Yankee farming town in 1630s to a wealthy suburb of Boston in the mid-1800s. Starting at the Dillaway-Thomas House, this tour also visits the First Church in Roxbury and the Cochituate Standpipe in Highland Park. Along the way, visitors will learn about Roxbury’s remaining mansions and abolitionists. ![]() Join Ekua Holmes, an exceptional Roxbury-based artist, on a walking tour of the visual arts on Fort Hill. Her in-depth knowledge of Roxbury's arts movements and personal connection to local artists will enlighten and entertain. In addition to visiting impressive pieces of public art around the neighborhood, the tour visits the home studios of resident artists. ![]() Walk behind the scenes - literally - into the verdant backyard gardens and green spaces of Highland Park/Fort Hill. Beginning at a large community garden and ending at a working farm, visitors will meet local gardeners (some prize winners) who tend to an assortment of flowers, produce, small animals, and a colony of bees. ![]() Based on Discover Roxbury's 2012 oral history project*, this tour explores Lower Roxbury, the former center of Boston's jazz scene, home of Pullman Porters, and stomping ground for several people who would eventually become leaders in the Civil Rights Movement. ![]() Enjoy the hidden gardens and splendid architectural details of Roxbury's Mt. Pleasant neighborhood. Beginning at a set of totem poles made by area students, visitors will meet local flower gardeners, a community-designed rock garden, and pass by urban greenhouses, before ending at Roxbury's oldest and grandest home. Notes: The tour travels along mostly flat, even ground with some stairs present. ![]() Gain a new perspective of Roxbury as you walk between two of its prominent hills, Fort Hill and Mission Hill. Beginning with colonial First Church in Roxbury and ending with the puddingstone grandeur of Mission Church, participants will visit prominent religious buildings which relay the history of Roxbury, as well as hear about demographic changes and industrial developments that impacted the neighborhood. The tour is presented in collaboration with Boston By Foot. http://www.bostonbyfoot.org/tours/sacred-spaces-roxbury#tix . |