Fire lookout · Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Sherborn Tower Site
Brush Hill, Sherborn MA: a 40-ft municipal wooden tower first operated 1920 and used until 1940; a 2014 trail guide shows communications towers on the summit.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Register lists it as a former site with use ending in 1940; no source describes the structure today
Visit & stay
Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.
Access
Access unknown
We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
- Trail
- 2014 Bay Circuit Trail guide routes walkers southeast through Sherborn Town Forest and up a gravel service road to the summit of Brush Hill
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Type unknown40-foot wooden tower, municipal
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 40 ft (12.2 m)
- Elevation
- 394 ft (120 m)
- Agency
- Unknown
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Middlesex County, Massachusetts
- Coordinates
- 42.25167, −71.38400
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ma-sherborn
View from the cab
What the lookout saw from its cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.
This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and its recorded height.
Downloads about 4.1 MB of terrain data the first time.
Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.
History
Then and now
- 1920 Eventtower first operated; register gives no build dateSource: firetower.org
- No record between 1920 and 1940
- 1940 Eventuse ended; register says used until 1940Source: firetower.org
- No record between 1940 and 2008
- 2008 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate Registered September 3, 2008; nominated by Henry IsenbergSource: firetower.org
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.
Old maps of this spot
USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Brush Hill in Sherborn once carried a fire lookout.1 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register describes a 40-foot wooden tower there, first operated in 1920 and used until 1940.1 The register calls it a municipal tower, which means the town ran it.1 It gives the site an elevation of 394 feet (120 meters).1
The town's own history says Sherborn had no official fire department until 1942, when Town Meeting voted to set one up.2 The lookout's recorded use had already ended two years earlier, in 1940.1
A 2014 edition of the Bay Circuit Trail guide sends walkers southeast through the Sherborn Town Forest and up a gravel service road to the summit of Brush Hill.3 The guide describes that summit as having communications towers and no view, and it does not say whether the summit is the lookout's site.3 I found no source that describes what remains of the lookout itself, or whether the summit is open to visitors today.
- Sherborn Tower Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ma/sherborn-tower-site/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- History, Town of Sherborn Fire & Rescue Department, https://www.sherbornma.org/633/History (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Map 9: Sherborn and Medfield, Bay Circuit Trail, https://www.baycircuit.org/pdf/section9.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, status, register numbers, dates, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, visiting details, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story
More about this lookout elsewhere
- FFLOS register entry US 39 (firetower.org) (opens another site)
- History (Town of Sherborn Fire & Rescue Department) (opens another site)
- Map 9: Sherborn and Medfield (Bay Circuit Trail) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.