South Woodstock, CT

South Woodstock is the kind of place where a town’s past still sits in plain view. The village and census-designated place had 1,493 residents in 2020 and occupies the eastern corner of Woodstock, a large northeastern Connecticut town with more operating dairy farms than any other in the state. Farm roads, old village buildings, small businesses, and Woodstock’s broader town services keep it tied to a landscape that is still working. The village’s roads still run past working farms, linking the former campus to everyday town life.

ATTRJohn Phelan / CC BY-SA 4.0

Its strongest local landmark is the former Annhurst College campus. The private Catholic college opened there in 1941, operated as a women’s college for most of its history, began admitting men full-time in 1972, and closed in 1980. The property later became Woodstock Academy’s South Campus, giving the old college grounds a second chapter. That arc—farm country, a short-lived college town, then an active school setting—makes South Woodstock feel more layered than its small population suggests.