Moorefields Conservation and Trail Easements
Partnering with Orange County, the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, the Eno River Association, and the City of Raleigh Watershed Protection Program, in March of 2024 two conservation easements were placed on the Moorefields property which will permanently protect the historic values of the house and surrounding landscape, as well the wildlife making its home here and the quality of the water in its streams.
Funded by the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, the State of North Carolina holds an easement which places 1900 feet of no-touch stream buffers along the banks of Rocky Run and its unnamed tributary stream. Orange County and the Eno River Association co-hold an easement on the remainder of the property which allows farming and land management using best practices on the fields and protect upland areas of mature hardwoods.
In addition to the conservation easements, Moorefields has granted to Orange County a trail corridor easement for the NC Mountains-to-Sea Trail through the woods on the north side of the property, which will link the trail sections on Orange County’s adjacent Seven Mile Creek Natural Area with sections of the trail coming from the east.
Both conservation easements will be monitored at least annually by Orange County and the Eno River Association to ensure that the protection commitments made by Moorefields continue in perpetuity.
The conservation easements placed on Moorefields’ seventy-two acres will permanently ensure that the landscape surrounding the historic home at Moorefields remains unspoiled by future development. In addition, the easements will provide significant benefits to the greater community.
Moorefields is situated within the "critical area” of the Upper Eno Public Water Supply Watershed. The eastern boundary of the property is located along Rocky Run and one of its tributaries which flow into the Eno River just over a mile downstream from Moorefields at the upper reaches of Lake Ben Johnson, the primary public water supply intake for the Town of Hillsborough. The Eno River then flows into Falls Lake, which provides drinking water for much of Raleigh and Wake County. As a result, the Moorefields property has been identified as a high priority for water quality protection (within the top 3% of all properties in the basin) by the conservation model developed as part of the Upper Neuse Clean Water Initiative funded by the City of Raleigh.
The northwestern portion of the Moorefields property is forested, providing a significant amount of wildlife habitat and buffer for aquatic resources. The easements will help protect two significant natural heritage areas: the Sevenmile Creek Sugar Maple Bottom located on the property and the Neuse/Eno River Aquatic Habitat just downstream. These natural areas support a number of state-threatened species and federal species of concern as well as rare freshwater mussels and fish, including the state endangered Atlantic pigtoe, yellow lampmussel and Eastern lampmussel, as well as the federally endangered dwarf wedgemussel. The easement will also provide connectivity with Orange County's Seven Mile Creek Natural Area lands, protecting and maintaining wildlife corridors and riparian buffers, and preventing long-term degradation of the water quality.
