When my wife and I moved to The Chapel Hill Neighborhood in Annandale in 2011, I found a stairway leading into the woods at the end of Beaverdam Court. There were park signs under overgrown trees and shrubs that were rotten and falling down yet marked the area as a Fairfax County Park. Neighbors bordering the park had been dumping yard debris at the trail head and most of the trail had been blocked by numerous fallen trees. The neighbor at the Tarheel Way trail head had been cutting the field at the trailhead and claiming the park as a private "green space" behind his property in the name of neighborhood safety. The large red and yellow wooden park sign at the trailhead was covered by a tree branch which was conveniently left in place to hide the sign and keep park patrons from discovering the area was indeed a Fairfax County Park.

Numerous calls and emails to the Park Authority were met with the answer that there were no funds for the park. Photos sent via email to numerous recipients motivated the Park Authority to replace the two signs over a two year period. Fall 2013, I met with a park manager who indicated he would try to do something but no promises. Finally, June 2014 Fairfax County Park Authority, with prompting from the Braddock Supervisor, brush cut the trail between Beaverdam Court and Tarheel Way. The trail between Tarheel Way and Glen Park Road remains closed. The park maintenance supervisor stated he would only open it if neighbors on the Glen Park Road side insisted. Most of those neighbors likely don't know the park exists as there are no signs on Glen Park indicating it is a trailhead and it is overgrown, however one man on that side has told me he has been trying to get it reopened for years and will try once again.

Oak Hill Park is named for historic Oak Hill Mansion, separated by Wakefield Chapel Road, but less than half a mile apart. There is a home in our neighborhood that is rumored to have been the slave quarters for the mansion and there is an unmarked cemetery up the hill from the home and currently between two homes on Hogans Lake Place in front of Oak Hill Park. The cemetery is marked on the park Master Plan by an "X".

Glen Erickson Bell - August 8, 2014

Read more about historic Oak Hill Mansion: Washington Post Annandale Blog
Read more about Fairfax County Adopt-A-Park

Oak Hill Park master plan, 1985 See fullsize

The Main Entrance to Oak Hill Park - Before

The Oak Hill Park trailhead at Beaverdam Court - Before

The Tarheel Way trailhead June 2014

The Beaverdam Court entrance June 2014 with a new metal FCPA sign

Invasive vines that are consuming Oak Hill Park trees

Current "Dumping" sign at Glen Park Road Trailhead

Current condition of the closed trail between Glen Park Road and Tarheel Way

Unnamed Cemetery, Hogans Lake Place