Featured Apartment:
Boston - 1 bedroom - 1 bath - spacious, clean & sunny unit! - Brick Building - Hardwood Floors - Modern Kitchen - Spacious Living Room - Large Bedroom w/ Double Sliding Door Closet - Updated Bathroom - Off Street Parking - access to commuter rail, bus, shops & restaurants, first and last months rent (NO SECURITY DEPOSIT) View More Listings -->
Renting an Apartment in Bridgewater
What You Should Know
Bridgewater is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, 28
miles (43 km) south of Boston. At the 2000 Census, the population was 25,185.
For geographic and demographic information on the census-designated place
Bridgewater, please see the article Bridgewater (CDP), Massachusetts.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 73.1
km˛ (28.2 mi˛). 71.2 km˛ (27.5 mi˛) of it is land and 1.9 km˛ (0.7 mi˛) of it
(2.62%) is water. Bridgewater is 99th out of the 351 communities in the
Commonwealth, and eighth out of the twenty-seven towns in Plymouth County in
terms of land area. The town is bordered by West Bridgewater to the northwest,
East Bridgewater to the northeast, Halifax to the east, Middleborough to the
south, and Raynham to the west. Bridgewater is approximately seven miles south
of Brockton, ten miles northeast of Taunton, and twenty-seven miles south of
Boston.
Bridgewater lies along the Taunton River, which has several other rivers and
brooks which branch off of the main waterway. There are also several ponds, the
largest of which is Lake Nippenicket along the western edge of the town. There
is also a state forest, a town forest, several conservation areas and a large
portion of the Hockomock Swamp Wildlife Management Area, in the western part of
town. Parts of this swamp give rise to the so-called Bridgewater Triangle, a
small area of concentrated reports of strange Fortean phenomena, colonial "dark
days," Bigfoot and mysterious black panthers, UFO sightings, and other weird
encounters, a phrase coined by Loren Coleman, author of *Mysterious America*
(NY: Simon and Schuster, 2007), often compared to the "Bermuda Triangle."
Education
Bridgewater shares its school district with neighboring Raynham, with both towns
operating their own elementary and middle schools, and sending their students to
a common high school. Bridgewater has two elementary schools, Burnell Elementary
(located adjacent to the Bridgewater State campus) and the George H. Mitchell
Elementary (south and west of the town center, formerly known as Bridgewater
Elementary), both of which serve students from kindergarten through grade four.
Burnell also has fifth and sixth grade classes, while Mitchell's fifth and sixth
grade students attend Meredith G. Williams Middle School with the town's entire
seventh and eighth grade population. The Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High
School is located in Bridgewater, west of the town center. B-R's athletics teams
are nicknamed the Trojans, and their colors are red, blue and white. The
school's chief rival is Silver Lake Regional High in Kingston, whom they play in
the annual Thanksgiving Day football game. A new rivalry has started with East
Bridgewater in recent years. The athletic teams of the Williams Middle School
use the Spartans nickname.
Bridgewater is home to the Southbrook School, a private school which serves
students from kindergarten through sixth grade. There are also private schools
in nearby Taunton and Brockton. Bridgewater was formerly the site of the
Bridgewater Academy, a private high school located on the town common.
The town is also home to Bridgewater State College, a public liberal arts
college that was founded in 1840. It is the largest of the state's nine state
colleges outside of the University of Massachusetts system. As of 2005,
approximately 7,000 undergraduate students and 1,800 postgraduate students are
enrolled at the college.
Transportation
Bridgewater is the site of the intersection of Interstate 495 and Route 24, with
only a one mile stretch of the interstate running through the southwestern
corner of town. Just north of this intersection along Route 24 are two large
service areas, both of which have restaurants and a gas station. They are the
only two such full service areas along Route 24, or, for that matter, anywhere
along the highways of Southeastern Massachusetts (aside from a stop along U.S.
Route 6 in Barnstable; that stop, however, is considered to be off the highway).
At the center of town, Route 18, Route 28 and Route 104 meet at the town common.
Routes 18 and 28, both north-south routes, are coextensive from this point south
to the road's intersection with U.S. Route 44 in Middleborough. Route 104 passes
from east to west, with ramp access to Route 24 in the west. A short portion of
Route 106 passes along the town line in the northeast of town; Route 104 's
eastern terminus is at that route, just along the East Bridgewater line.
The Middleborough-Lakeville line of the MBTA's commuter rail passes through the
town, with a stop at the southern end of the Bridgewater State College Campus,
just south of the college's main parking lots at the southern campus. The route
is currently the only such rail line bringing commuters from the South Coast
area to South Station in Boston. There is no air service to the town; there is a
small strip in nearby Taunton, and the nearest national air service can be found
at T. F. Green Airport outside Providence and at Logan International Airport in
Boston.