Group Tours at Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm (1690)

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Four centuries on the farm

A National Historic Landmark

The 230-acre Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm includes a late seventeenth-century manor house that served as the country seat of wealthy Newburyport merchants and an attached farmhouse that was home to a Lithuanian farm family for most of the twentieth century. The site also fosters farm animals in partnership with the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Visit friendly sheep, goats, chickens, and a horse throughout the year. Learn about life on a farm over the centuries through guided tours and hands-on activities. Pump water from the well outside the kitchen or sit in a horsehair-covered rocking chair and look through a stereo-viewer in the nineteenth-century parlor. Explore nature trails and enjoy a picnic under ancient maple trees.

Location:
5 Little’s Lane, Newbury, Mass.
978-462-2634

Hours of Operation:

June 1 to October 15, Thursday through Sunday, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
All group tours must be scheduled by appointment. In addition to open days, group tours may be scheduled at times the museum is closed to the public.

Specialty Tours

We are happy to work with you to customize your experience.

Guided House Tour: Enjoy an approximately one-hour guided tour; please allow one and a half hours for your visit.
Behind the Scenes: Add the 1775 barn and the manor house attic, with graffiti and carvings from the early 1800s, not on view during the guided house tour.
Farm Hands: Meet three centuries of farm owners and workers. Learn about the farm before the house, and take a tractor ride through the vast fields. Peak inside our 1775 barn, not usually open to the public, and see an evolution of farm tools.
Rum Rations and Revolution: Enjoy a lecture on the storied life of Offin Boardman, sea captain and Revolutionary privateer, and a private rum tasting and history in the 1775 barn.

Early Newbury Century Excursion Tour: See three seventeenth-century houses in one day. Start at Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, a 1690 manor house where wealthy Newburyport merchants and tenant farmers lived and farmed the land through seven generations. Enjoy lunch at the farm on picnic tables next to our lovely farm animals. Next, go up the street to Coffin House (1678) to experience how one family lived for three centuries. Lastly, a few houses down, Swett-Ilsley House (c. 1670) is an example of a combined commercial and home site, and was once a seventeenth-century tavern and an early twentieth-century tea house.

Tour Details

Up to 15 visitors can tour the house with each guide; generally we can accommodate up to 30 visitors in the house in one hour. Accommodations can be made for larger groups.
Please note that the tour requires a considerable amount of standing and climbing stairs. If members of your group need special assistance, please let the museum know in advance.

Cost:

Guided House Tour: $10 per adult for groups of 8 or more visitors. Additional rates apply for all other tours. Prices subject to change.
Receptive tour operator rates available upon request.
Tour leader and bus driver are welcome to a complimentary tour with the group.
A non-refundable deposit based on your maximum number is due upon booking. The outstanding balance must be paid when the group arrives on-site for the tour.
Please call two weeks in advance to confirm a guaranteed number of visitors.

Nearby Attractions:

Historic Newburyport offers a wide variety of restaurants, shops, historic sites, museums, and attractions including the Museum of Old Newbury, Custom House Maritime Museum, Plum Island, and Maudslay State Park. There are also a number of shops, restaurants, and a brewery in nearby Ipswich.
Visit other Historic New England properties nearby. Package discounts available.
- Rocky Hill Meeting House, Amesbury – One of the best preserved examples of an original eighteenth-century meeting house interior.
- Cogswell’s Grant, Essex – A mecca for lovers of American folk art, Cogswell’s Grant was the summer home of renowned collectors Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little.

Groups are welcome to join us at a number of events including Vintage Base Ball games and our annual Draft Horse Plow Day, Fiber Revival, and American Music and Harvest Festival. Please note, first-floor tours are included with the event admission price, regular group tour offerings not available. If interested in attending as a group, please call.

Amenities:

Two restrooms located in the Visitor Center
Museum shop offering an assortment of books and souvenirs
Walk the grounds of the farm. Visit our farm animals on-site or walk a mile-long trail that ends at Plum Island.
Plenty of on-site parking is available for both cars and buses.

Please Remember: