The Rocks sold to Wake County

First property owned by TLC will remain in conservation

Published in TLC News February 2005

Twenty years ago, in November 1984, the Procter family of Raleigh donated 10 acres of land near Lizard Lick that had been in their family since the 1700s.

The Rocks, as the place is known, was the first property owned by the infant TLC. As such, The Rocks represented not just the protection of a significant natural area, but also an early coming of age for a one-year-old organization.

Now, caught in an eddy of the stream of growth—and threatened with condemnation under the county’s power of eminent domain—TLC has sold the land to Wake County for its Little River Reservoir.

The good news is that The Rocks will remain much as it has under TLC’s 20-year stewardship. The county will maintain the property as protected open space, and the granite outcroppings will lie outside the inundation zone of the reservoir.

The Rocks represents the easternmost occurrence of flat, ground-level granite outcroppings in the Piedmont. It is one of 26 such rocks in eastern Wake and neighboring counties; TLC’s Temple Flat Rock is another.

Dry for most of the year, the granite depressions are covered with brilliant magenta sedum blooms in the spring.

Early ideas to use The Rocks as an educational interpretive area never fully developed. TLC did maintain the area as a nature preserve open to the public until 2000, when other potential open preserves became available.

The county paid $28,000 for The Rocks, which TLC will put toward future land protection ($20,000) and stewardship ($8,000).