Bridgewater clears two ways, depending on which side of the ridge you’re on. Along the Pemigewasset the town has its own buffer ordinance layered on the state’s — half the trees stay, and stumps inside fifty feet of the bank don’t come out without the Planning Board’s say-so. Up on the mountain it’s five-acre lots and old pasture gone to pine. We clear to whichever rule applies and haul what comes out.
Start with the river side, because that’s where people get surprised. Bridgewater wrote a Pemigewasset River Shoreline Protection section into its own zoning — the town says it’s there to mimic what the state gives other rivers, and it goes further than most owners on River Road expect. Within 150 feet of the bank a natural woodland buffer stays where it exists. No more than half the basal area of trees comes out in any twenty-year window. And the one that stops a clearing job cold: stumps and roots inside 50 feet of the river stay in the ground unless the Planning Board specifically approves pulling them. Nothing gets built on a slope over 15 percent anywhere in the 250-foot band, and sand-and-gravel excavation is flat out prohibited there, because the town’s aquifer sits under that stretch of River Road.
The lake side is the state’s Shoreland Act, which you probably know if you own on Newfound. Tree-point grid in the first 50 feet, a quarter of the ground left natural from 50 to 150. On the east shore that band is often the only flat ground on the lot, because the hillside behind Route 3A climbs fast. We’ve flagged a lot of buffers on Shore Drive North where the ask was “open up the view” and the honest answer was “some of it.”
Then there’s the rest of the town, which is most of it. Sixty-five percent of Bridgewater is in current use, and the Mountain District — Bridgewater Hill Road, Dick Brown Road out past John Smith Hill, up around the old Town House — is five-acre minimum lots on ground that was farmed hard until the 1860s and then let go. That’s the clearing we like. Stone walls through the middle of it, a cellar hole or two, white pine sixty feet tall on what used to be pasture. Fewer rules, real stumps, and the prime farm soil the master plan maps along Cass and Bridgewater Hill Road is still under there if somebody wants a field back.
One thing to sort out before we quote: is this a lot clearing or a timber harvest? The town’s plan pushes for a licensed forester and a registered logger on harvests over five acres, and the state wants an intent-to-cut filed on anything sold as timber. If there’s sawlog value on the parcel we’ll say so. Sometimes the logs pay for the stumping.
If your Bridgewater lot touches the Pemigewasset, walk it with the town’s shoreline section in hand before you buy or plan. The stump rule inside 50 feet catches people who assumed the state Shoreland Act was the whole story.
Flag first. On the river we tape the 50-, 150-, and 250-foot lines back from the bank and mark the stumps that are staying. On the lake we grid the buffer and score it. On a Mountain District lot it’s the house site, the septic area, and the driveway line, painted, with the walls we’re keeping ribboned so the operator doesn’t push a two-hundred-year-old wall into a stump pile. That happens. Not on our jobs.
Then trees down, logs decked at the road, tops chipped. Stumps come out with the excavator on everything except the river buffer, where the ordinance says they stay — we cut those flush and leave the roots to hold the bank. Loam gets stripped and piled by itself so it can go back on top. On the hillside lots above 3A the silt fence goes in before the first stump moves, because everything below you is either a neighbor’s driveway or the lake.
We finish with a rough grade that sheds water and a lot you can walk with a septic designer. In Bridgewater that matters more than usual: the Mountain District wants 30,000 contiguous square feet of ground that passes state septic standards, and the Planning Board can ask for a test pit before they’ll sign a subdivision. Clearing that leaves the good soil where it is makes that pit a lot easier to pass.
Clearing in Bridgewater runs $3,000–$8,000 per acre for wooded ground. River and lake buffer work lands at the top because so much of it is hand work and hauling; old-pasture lots up the mountain come in lower, and if there’s sawlog value it can offset the stumping. One number after the walk.
Inside 50 feet of the river, no — not without specific Planning Board approval. Bridgewater’s shoreline ordinance keeps stumps and root systems in the ground there to hold the bank. We cut flush, leave the roots, and pull everything past the 50-foot line normally. Between 50 and 150 feet you still can’t take more than half the basal area in twenty years.
The state Shoreland Act governs the 250 feet nearest the water. In the first 50 feet you keep a scored set of trees in every 50-by-50 grid square; from 50 to 150 feet at least a quarter of the ground stays natural. The town adds a 50-foot structure setback from the lake. Past 250 feet, normal lot-clearing rules apply.
Depends what’s standing on it. Sixty-foot white pine on old pasture has sawlog value; popple and gray birch mostly don’t. If the trees are worth selling, the state wants an intent-to-cut filed and the town’s plan calls for a licensed forester on harvests over five acres. We’ll tell you which you’ve got before quoting.
They stay unless you tell us otherwise. Bridgewater’s hill farms were abandoned after the Civil War and the walls are the only thing left of most of them. We ribbon them before the machine arrives and clear up to them. If a wall has to be opened for a driveway, we save the stone.
Late summer through fall for lake and river lots, when the ground is firm and buffer plantings can go in. Frozen ground works fine on Mountain District parcels. April and early May we stay off the hill roads entirely — the town posts dirt roads at six tons, and a loaded chip truck won’t make it up Poole Hill anyway.
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