• Norfolk Crowds Return to New Farmers Market

    By Andra Moss The crowd was large, loud and loving it at July’s Northwest Farm to Fork farmers market, held under the pavilion at Norbrook Farm Brewery. “We were very pleased with the turnout, with approximately 230 customers coming through and 16 food and farm vendors,” says Lisa Auclair, a co-founder, with Devin Grosso and […]

  • Friday Night on the Green Celebrates America’s 250th

    July 3 was a picture-perfect night for the community-wide event cel-ebrating America’s Independence. Following a quick parade, picnickers enjoyed burgers and ice cream while judges dug into the entries in the pie baking contest. First Selectman Hen-ry Tirrell moved seamlessly from his welcome speech to the dunk tank, and a few folks, like Pete Sanders […]

  • NORFOLK REMEMBERS Laurene Mary Wallace

    Laurene Mary Wallace, 77, of Colebrook passed peacefully at home surrounded by her family on Friday, July 10, 2026. Laurene was born on April 28, 1949, in Bridgeport, the last of four children born to the late Lawrence and Irene (Misencik) Firmender of Stratford. A retired registered nurse, Laurene’s career in nursing and cardiac rehabilitation […]

  • Norfolk Remembers Sally Sterling Ellis Quale

    Sally Sterling Ellis Quale, of Norfolk and St. Petersburg, Fla., formerly of Bronxville, N.Y., died unexpectedly of heart failure on July 7 at the age of 87. Sally will be remembered for her deep commitment to her family and communities and for her warmth, kindness, intelligence, creativity … and, of course, for her beautiful smile […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    This charming house, still standing on the west side of Litchfield Rd., was built in 1905 for Richmond Paine, the newly appointed conductor of the Litchfield County Choral Union (LCCU). Carl and Ellen Battell Stoeckel engaged the architect Ehrick Rossiter to design the house for Paine as well as the Music Shed for performances by […]

  • Norfolk’s Newest Neighborhood Puts Down Roots

    Haystack Woods lauded as a “model for the state” By Joe Kelly Norfolk’s newest neighborhood, the Haystack Woods affordable housing development, has officially come to life. A year ago, the 39-acre location—a former gravel pit off Old Colony Road—was little more than a muddy building site. Now construction of the 10, two- and three-bedroom homes […]

  • Winsted Church Auctions Tiffany Window for $1.25 Million

    Sale highlights women’s role in Tiffany designs By Joe Kelly When medieval architects found ways to build taller cathedrals, the techniques they developed also made possible the enormous stained-glass windows that we so enjoy today, such as at Chartres and Sainte-Chapelle in France and Canterbury Cathedral in England. American-made stained glass is more recent, dating […]

  • A Revolutionary Year

    1776 Norfolk explored in summer exhibition By Andra Moss Communities across the country are looking back with wonder at 1776, the year that 13 British colonies initiated a revolution that, against astonishing odds, led to the birth of an independent republic. In Norfolk, two curators have combed the Norfolk Historical Society’s (NHS) collection for colonial-era […]

  • SUMMER MUSIC: Familiar Quartets, New Composers at Yale Chamber Festival

    By Patricia Platt The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, running from July 3 until Aug. 22, will present an exciting season of classical, innovative and international music. This summer, the Brentano Quartet, Shanghai Quartet, Ying Quartet and the Horszowski Trio are among those who will perform during weekend concerts and serve as artist-in-residence mentors to the […]

  • Botelle Students Move Up

    By Avice Meehan Four sixth graders bid farewell to Botelle Elementary School at a laughter-filled, but occasionally serious, ceremony on June 16 that was attended by family, friends and town officials. First Selectmen Henry Tirrell, a Botelle graduate whose mother and aunt taught at the school for many years, reminded the students that they would […]

  • Norfolk Rail-Trail Project Pedals Forward

    By Jude Mead After more than a decade of planning, permiting and redesign work, Norfolk’s long-await-ed Rails-to-Trails initiative has reached a major milestone, bringing the community closer to the creation of a new multi-use recreational trail along a historic railroad corridor. The project is the North Brook Trail, a planned three-quarter-mile ADA-accessi-ble pathway that will […]

  • LEGISLATIVE UPDATE: Budgets, Beetles, Nips and More

    By Avice Meehan State Rep. Maria Horn came prepared to share details about the Connecticut budget (she is co-chair of the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee) and the progress that has been made toward paying down the state’s unfunded pension liability, increasing the rainy day fund (now up to $18 billion) and allocating more state funds […]

Articles

The Lights Go Out at Great Impressions

Tenant Sought for Vacated Hair Salon By Colleen Gundlach With the closing last month of Norfolk’s only hair salon, Great Impressions, the south corner of Station Place at Route 44 looks dark. But, in the words of an old Chinese proverb, “Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” Martha Pallone, owner of […]

Bill Gridley Dies After Brief Illness

William Gill Gridley, Jr. died peacefully after a brief illness Saturday, November 29 at his Norfolk home under the loving care of his family and hospice nurses and aides of the Foothills Visiting Nurses Association. Gridley was born January 10, 1929 in New York City, the son of Elizabeth Meeker and William Gill Gridley. His […]

Farmers Market Plows on Through Winter Months

Thriving from May to October for eight years strong, the Norfolk Farmers Market now has a winter presence as well. Moving inside, to the second floor of town hall, for the cold weather months, food vendors sell their products twice a month from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Winter markets will be held on February […]

The Sharing Economy Comes to Norfolk

New Business Model Threatens Local Innkeeper By Wiley Wood The basic idea of the sharing economy is that if you have an asset that is not being fully used—a car that sits in the driveway, a vacant couch, a pup tent in a closet, fancy camera equipment—you can hook up through the digital world with […]

Russell Russ Records Norfolk’s Weather for the National Weather Service

Continuing an 82-Year Tradition By Colleen Gundlach There has been a lot of discussion in Norfolk about the town’s ability to keep young people here and provide them employment. There are, however, families whose contribution to the town has spanned generations and provided not only a livelihood but a way of life. The Russ family […]

The Christmas Bird Count

Citizen Scientists Make Their Mark By Susannah Wood On December 14, in the dark and cold of 4 a.m., Ray Belding is going to be in the woods calling to owls. For the next 10 hours or so he and his team will be counting every bird they see for the annual Audubon Christmas Bird […]

Economic Development Commission Readies for Action

Toby Young Named Co-Director By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo Norfolk’s Economic Development Commission (EDC) has a robust agenda for 2015. Newly appointed co-director Toby Young and longtime leader Libby Borden foresee the organization having a fruitful year. At the top of the agenda is utilizing the consultant that will soon be appointed to Norfolk and seven […]

Norfolk Library Plans for the Next Century

Preserving an Architectural Gem By Ruth Melville The Norfolk Library is one of the architectural highlights of our town. For over 125 years this striking building on the Village Green has served the people of Norfolk, not only as a home for books, but as a gathering place for town residents. The library recently received […]

Norfolk Offers Dial-A-Ride Bus Service

“We’ll go anywhere people need to go” By Christopher Sinclair It’s hard to imagine, but the town of Norfolk was once a transportation hub. Conductors barked orders, and steam-driven trains came to a reluctant halt in the village center where Norfolk residents now pick up their mail and deposit their checks. People traveled with ease […]

Struggle to Maintain Town’s Aging Roadways Continues

Major Repaving of State Highways Last Summer Helped By Kurt Steele Every day most Norfolk residents drive on some part of Norfolk’s nearly 60 miles of roads—43 miles of it maintained by the town and 16 by the state. They are joined a little less often by Norfolk’s many part-time residents. Having enough money to […]

Lecture on Resilience to Climate Change

As the climate changes, species can be expected to relocate, with fauna and flora migrating at different rates. Some will survive the disruption, others not. Identifying places that will sustain a large variety of species despite changing climate, a characteristic known as “resilience,” has been a priority of conservationists in recent years. The Norfolk Land […]

Beekeeping in the Northwest Corner

The Secret Lives of Bees… By Babs Perkins We’ve all seen them. That stack of boxes at the edge of an open field or meadow or tucked in the corner of an apple orchard. We know that they are beehives, but how many of us actually understand what’s going on inside those mysterious boxes? Some […]