• 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

Out and About

Not your Average Run Of the Mill By Rosanna Trestman Every piece of lumber begins as a log. Typically, the log goes from forest to sawmill, and comes out a plank cut to a uniform width, length and height. But at Berkshire Products, a sawmill tucked on Ashley Falls Road in Sheffield, Mass., the log’s […]

Veteran Editor to Join Norfolk Now

Ruth Melville has spent 40 years helping bringing books to life By Lloyd Garrison Last year, when Ruth Melville began showing up at Norfolk Now story conferences and volunteered to write for the paper, the editors were unaware of a true pro in their midst. Not only could she write, but she was a seasoned […]

Edward Machowski is Norfolk’s Resident Waterways Expert

By Colleen Gundlach Norfolk has a very environmentally aware population. From the Norfolk Land Trust to the Conservation Commission, people here know the importance of taking care of what they have been given. One of the townís most knowledgeable residents in the realm of protecting waterways and the fish that inhabit them, is biologist Edward […]

The Colebrook Store Goes Out of Business

A Revolving Door By Bob Bumcrot After only nine months of operation, the Colebrook Store closed its doors at the end of March due to significant management differences between the owners of the building, the Colebrook Preservation Society (CPS), and the store operator, Miriam Briggs. Briggs, who lives above the store with her sons Quentin, […]

Touring Musician Posts Norfolk Video Online

  While in Norfolk on February 27 to play a concert at Infinity Hall, folk musician Brett Dennen wandered the downtown area and made a short video, which has recently been posted to YouTube. In it he comments drolly on the nonexistent rush-hour traffic, the overly solicitous signs and the friendliness of the locals—who remained […]

Rosemary Gill Reads Dorothy Parker

As the audience drifted into the Norfolk Library on Saturday, April 5, they were directed to the reference room, where a gleaming tray of martinis greeted them. The story on offer that evening, “Here We Are,” was written by the Algonquin Round Table stalwart Dorothy Parker in 1931, a time when it was not unusual […]

Eye on Town Government

By Wiley Wood At the Board of Selectmen’s regular meeting on April 1, 2014, a letter from a Norfolk resident prompted a discussion of crime prevention. First Selectman Sue Dyer had investigated the possibility of hiring a constable to help the resident trooper with his duties. Her research revealed that the town would have to […]

Plan to Fight Homelessness in NW CT

Everyone needs safe place to call home By Ruth Melville Rural homelessness may not be as visible as urban homelessness, but that does not make it less real or less painful. A 2011 point-in-time count suggests that on any given night over 150 people in the Northwest Corner are homeless, and the percentage of those […]

Norfolk Land Trust Earns Accreditation

 National Recognition of Excellence   In February, the Norfolk Land Trust (NLT) received its accreditation from the national Land Trust Accreditation Commission, an independent program of the Land Trust Alliance (LTA). One of only 254 land trusts across the country that are currently accredited, the NLT is authorized to display a seal indicating to the […]

Norfolk Real Estate Officially Loses 9 Percent of Value in Last Five Years

Town Budget Likely to Remain Flat But Tax Rate Will Rise Slightly   By Wiley Wood Property in Norfolk is appraised every five years in keeping with state law, and the latest results are in, according to Assessor Michele Sloane. The grand list has lost about 4.6 percent of its value overall, with real estate […]

Digital Norfolk Council Formed

Fiber Optic Has Potential to Attract New Norfolk Residents   By Kurt Steele Kim Maxwell, a Norfolk resident who has been involved in a number of communications businesses, has been talking since last spring with town leaders and residents about the benefits of Norfolk building its own fiber optic high-speed system. “If fiber high-speed services […]

Robin Hood Radio & TV

Navigating The Sherwood Forest of Public Access   By Colleen Gundlach In Norfolk, tuning in to Channel 6 on cable television brings an array of locally produced programs, from a Botelle Board of Education meeting to a Salisbury zoning meeting to the daily Morning Show simulcast from WHDD in Sharon. Formally titled Community Access Television […]