Overview
Linbrook Woodlands is a 181-acre parcel adjacent to Linbrook Park and located within the Franklin Park municipality. The sloping, wooded property has frontage along 3,000 linear feet of Big Sewickley Creek with deep wooded ravines, trails, and many springs that support Big Sewickley Creek. A crumbling cemetery and church foundation alongside Hopkins Church Road are reminders of earlier developments on the land.
It is a distinctive natural area that is unique to Allegheny County due to its range of plant and wildlife. Its adjacency to Linbrook Park creates the opportunity to expand park trails and public access to the creek. Future goals for the property include building trail connections between Linbrook Park and the Woodlands, removing invasive species, and compiling flora and fauna species lists.
Visitors can access Linbrook Woodlands via Hopkins Church Road trail head or via Linbrook Park where there are many trail connections between the Park and Linbrook Woodlands. If hunting Linbrook Woodlands, you may only enter through the trail head off of Hopkins Church Road; hunters entering from Linbrook Park is prohibited, and strictly enforced.
Open Hunting is permitted on this property. We ask that hunters read our Hunting Policy, and apply for a permit before hunting on any conservation area.
Background
A 41-lot development was being proposed for the land in 2014, which prompted ALT to act urgently to secure it under contract. A housing plan of this scale on the steep, wooded, and slide prone slopes would have had a negative impact on the water quality of Big Sewickley Creek, created more storm water runoff and flood risks downstream, and forever scarred the scenic quality of the valley.
Linbrook Woodlands is part of the Big and Little Sewickley Creek Land Conservation Area (LCA), noteworthy for its natural forest character. The Allegheny County Natural Heritage Inventory (ACNHI) notes that the LCA has significant biodiversity and is also “the largest tract of relatively contiguous, undeveloped green space in the county.”