In 1734, the site of the Walnford Estate was a working gristmill.  A Philadelphia Quaker named Richard Waln saw an ad for the property in a 1772 newspaper, and was compelled to buy its grist mill, saw mill, fulling mill, blacksmith and cooper’s shops, a large 2-family brick house, five tenant houses, farm buildings, 100 plowed acres and two orchards. He renamed it Walnford, constructed an elegant home and moved in with his wife Elizabeth and children in 1773.

The site saw many changes over the ensuing years: Son Nicholas Waln and his bride Sarah Ridgeway Waln took charge of Walnford in 1799.  The property grew to 1300 acres and and a 50-person village. Nicholas died, and the two Sarahs—wife and daughter—maintained Walnford as agriculture and milling production moved
west. They sold off some of the acreage and focused on redesigning the home, adding a post office, rebuilding the mill after a disastrous fire in 1872, and adding the current carriage house and cow barn.

The property stayed in the Waln family and was transformed into a quiet Colonial Revival estate until it was sold after 200 years of occupancy to Edward and Joanne Mullen who lived in the home and ultimately donated it to the Monmouth County Park System in 1985.

We toured the main house, learning interesting details such as the nature of the original flooring, paintings of the residents, operation of the old-fashioned kitchen, the sleeping quarters and arrangements, and eyeing the original period antiques.  We also walked through the carriage house and stables (“some” of us are apparently 14 hands tall), and visited the grist mill, which, we determined would make one cool apartment in modern day.

An antique car installment was on display, but we were too late to see anything of consequence and focused instead on the free tour, friendly guide and serene grounds (that we wish we owned). The park system holds programming on site–ice cream making and eating, tea parties, educational seminars etc.–and there are fully usable picnic tables on the grounds.