The Town Pound is an enclosure in historic Sudbury Center where stray cattle, horses, sheep and swine were rounded up and kept. It is recorded that Josiah Haynes at an early town meeting proposed that the owner of the stray animals should be charged one pence for every day their animal stayed in the pound.

It was built for $20 dollars in 1797. The walls had to be 5 1/2’ feet high with hewn ten-inch chestnut timbers on top. Said pound is 15’ square within the walls. Note that the gate swings inwards so that animals couldn't push their way out.

The town meeting also ordered that “the Pound could be constructed of rocks found on the surrounding land and to make use of the wall of the cemetery” to help keep the cost down. In the picture above, you can see that the cemetery wall forms the right side wall of the pound.

While many towns in Massachusetts had town pounds, this is one of the very few that still survives today. The Daughters of the American Revolution restored it to its current appearance in 1939.

The Pound is still used on rare occasions, most recently by town officials to hold stray horses. It has only been used to hold stray livestock (not pets, or, as some wags have suggested, errant citizens).