Joe Jenkins, the developer behind the Downs, planned for his new community to have a main entrance on Generals Highway, roughly where Carriage Hills sits now. A deep ravine was in the way. Anne Arundel County's Department of Planning and Zoning would not allow a bridge-road over it, so Coachway was bulldozed through what was left of the old golf course's front nine and connected to Sherwood Forest Road instead.
Fifty years later, that decision still shapes the neighborhood. The Downs' 225 properties sit on a peninsula between Clements Creek and Brewer Creek, extending into the Severn River. Because of the ravine, the only way in is Coachway from Sherwood Forest Road. For most of the year, that arrangement is just geography. In October it becomes a scheduling advantage. The corridor behind the neighborhood carries one of the region's largest weekend crowds, and it also holds forest trails and a memorial park that run on their own published hours. Every one of those schedules is posted, and the clocks are what matter.
The festival runs on a clock you can read
The Maryland Renaissance Festival at 1821 Crownsville Road has eight days left in its 2026 season: October 3 and 4, 10 and 11, 17 and 18, and 24 and 25. It is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. each festival day.
The festival is unusually specific about its traffic. Its FAQ puts the inbound peak at 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and the outbound crush at 6:30 p.m. through closing. It also says the busy season typically starts in mid to late September, so every remaining weekend falls inside it. Local law enforcement works the roadways to keep cars moving, and the festival tows vehicles parked on the main road or in surrounding communities.
For anyone whose Saturday includes a run up Generals Highway, those two windows mark the hours to avoid. A late-morning errand runs straight into the inbound wave. A trip home in the early afternoon, after 1:30, misses it. The County has also posted a police-managed closure of Honeysuckle Lane during festival hours on every remaining weekend through October 25. Access stays open for local residents and businesses, and traffic control is in place only while the festival is open.
If you plan to go yourself, buy tickets ahead. They are sold online only and are tied to a specific date. Adult general admission is $31 before the 10% amusement tax and the ticketing fee. The festival says it regularly sells out. It releases a limited number of tickets for the upcoming weekend on Monday and Friday mornings, and waitlisted buyers get first offers. Bring cash, because beverages and games are cash only.
Bacon Ridge is where the crowd isn't
Bacon Ridge Natural Area in Crownsville covers more than 1,100 acres of mature forest and wetland in the South River Greenway. Of that, 630 acres are permanently protected through a conservation easement among the County, the Maryland Environmental Trust and Scenic Rivers Land Trust. The trail system runs more than 20 miles on natural surfaces. It was built with the Mid-Atlantic Off-Road Enthusiasts, the mountain biking and trail-building club known as MORE, and it is open to hikers, mountain bikers and leashed dogs. A mountain bike skills park sits off the Severn Chapel parking area, and Severn Chapel and Hawkins Road both have portable restrooms year-round.
The trails also connect two parts of this post. The Bacon Ridge trailheads are the public's hike-in and bike-in routes to the Crownsville Hospital Patient Cemetery, which means a morning on the trails can end at the memorial instead of back at the car.
On Saturday, October 17, from 10 a.m. to noon, Scenic Rivers Land Trust is holding a Healthy Forests workday from the Hawkins Road trailhead. This month's targets are invasive vines, shrubs and grasses along designated trail sections. Volunteers are trained on site, gloves and tools are available, and participants need to be able to hike up to a mile to reach the work areas. The rules are practical: anyone under 16 needs a supervising adult, long sleeves and closed-toe shoes are required because poison ivy is present, and the workday goes ahead only if at least five people register.
Three miles to a name
Anne Arundel County bought the former Crownsville State Hospital property from the State of Maryland in December 2022. On September 4, 2025, the County Executive and the Friends of Crownsville Hospital Patient Cemetery unveiled the "Say My Name" Memorial at what is now Crownsville Hospital Memorial Park. The memorial lists more than 1,700 patients from 26 states and 4 countries who were buried there between 1912 and 1965. Many were buried in unmarked graves, recorded only as numbers. Their names were recovered through years of research led by Janice Hayes-Williams and carried out by the Friends. The design, construction and site work cost $340,243 in combined state and county funds. The Friends began reading the recovered names aloud at annual ceremonies on the property in 2005. Their 26th annual ceremony was listed for April 25, with readings at 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m.
Getting there takes a little effort. The County's most recent published access sheet, updated September 17, 2025, gives three options:
- Hike or bike in, dawn to dusk, seven days a week. It is about 3 miles on natural-surface trail from the Bacon Ridge Road parking area at 1284 Bacon Ridge Road, or about 4 miles from the Hawkins Road parking area at 1700 Hawkins Road.
- Drive in on the first Saturday of the month, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., every month except January, with no reservation needed. Parking is on grass, so heavy rain can cancel the day, and the short walk to the cemetery is not ADA accessible.
- Drive in on a weekday by reservation. Requests go to the Resource Conservation and Protection unit at least 48 hours ahead, for a two-hour block between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Public access is limited to the cemetery area and the trails west of I-97. The County says anyone found outside those areas will be treated as a trespasser. The sheet is dated 2025, so call the park rangers at 410-222-2844 before planning around it.
The rest of the campus is still being worked on. The County's master plan, released in February 2025, describes a museum, educational exhibits and programming as future additions, not facilities open today. The County announced that it finished replacing the campus water mains on July 16, 2026. The history work also goes beyond the property. On Saturday, October 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the County's Crownsville Hospital historic-documentation project is holding a free "Learn to do Oral History" workshop at the Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum in Annapolis.
Put these schedules side by side and they overlap more than you might expect:
| Date | On the corridor | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Sat., Oct. 3 | First-Saturday cemetery drive-in; festival day | Cemetery 10 a.m.–2 p.m.; festival 10 a.m.–7 p.m. |
| Sat., Oct. 10 | Oral history workshop in Annapolis; festival day | Workshop 10 a.m.–2 p.m. |
| Sat., Oct. 17 | Bacon Ridge workday at Hawkins Road; festival day | Workday 10 a.m.–noon |
| Sat.–Sun., Oct. 24–25 | Final festival weekend | 10 a.m.–7 p.m. |
October 3 is the weekend to plan carefully. The cemetery's drive-in window, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., covers the festival's entire inbound peak on the same stretch of Crownsville roads. To make that visit, arrive near 10 a.m., before the 11 a.m. wave. If you would rather skip the drive, the Bacon Ridge Road trailhead gets you there on foot any day of the month.
Stops on the way back to Coachway
The Generals Highway businesses between Crownsville and the Annapolis end each keep their own hours, so check before a weekend that already has a festival or a trail on it:
- HoneySmith Bees & Gardens, 1241 Generals Highway, Crownsville, sells local produce and hydroponic greens from its market and lists hours seven days a week.
- Bean Rush Cafe, 1015 Generals Highway, takes online orders and lists daily hours, which makes it easy to grab coffee before a trailhead start.
- Toast the 21st, 1355 Generals Highway, Crownsville, is open Tuesday through Sunday.
- Lures Bar & Grille, 1397 Generals Highway, Crownsville, keeps a live-updated craft beer list and has a full food menu that includes brunch.
Timing still applies on the way home. The festival's outbound traffic starts building at 6:30 p.m., so an early dinner at Lures or an afternoon stop at HoneySmith on a festival Saturday stays ahead of the cars leaving Crownsville Road.
The ravine that kept the Downs off Generals Highway also gave the neighborhood a back door onto Sherwood Forest Road. In October, using that door well comes down to two posted windows: 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. inbound and 6:30 p.m. onward outbound.
If you live in the Downs and want to talk through how the Generals Highway side, the trail access or the creeks figure into what your home is worth, The Housecats Company knows this peninsula from both ends of Coachway. Let's Work Together.