Weddington NC: Hunter Farm and 4 Parks to Try

If you’ve just moved to Weddington, or you’re about to, the first Saturday here raises an obvious question: where do you actually go? There’s no downtown to wander into and no main street to park on, so the answer is a handful of specific places rather than a direction. The short version is a working farm on Providence Road that runs wagon rides out to a petting barn for $14 a head through Sunday, November 1, one ball field park off NC 84 that’s open to anyone, and four parks you can be standing in inside ten minutes.

Below is each one: what’s there, what it costs, when it’s open, and which town it’s actually in, because several of the best options near Weddington carry a Matthews or Waxhaw address and people miss them for that reason alone.

14 min read | Living in South Charlotte

What This Story Covers

• The short answer on things to do in Weddington NC
• Hunter Farm, and what a visit costs
• Weddington Optimist Park, the park in town
• Three more parks within about four miles
• Where to walk, and the two greenways just north
• Pizza, bagels and the Providence Road row
• Is anything on the town calendar this fall?
• Why your address might say Matthews
• Frequently asked questions
• About the author
• How we sourced this

The short answer on things to do in Weddington NC

Hunter Farm is the headline. It sits at 13624 Providence Road and it’s the only place in Weddington that people outside the area drive in for. Weddington Optimist Park, off NC Highway 84, is the park in town and it’s open to the public even though a nonprofit owns it. Those are the two in-town answers, and they’re both good ones.

After that you’re driving, and the drives are short. Colonel Francis J. Beatty Park, Dogwood Park at Wesley Chapel and Marvin Efird Park are all within about four miles of the middle of town, and two Mecklenburg County greenways sit a few miles north. None of those three carries a Weddington address, which is the single most common reason people never find them.

Where to go in and around Weddington, with the town each one sits in and the source for its hours and prices, checked Friday, October 9, 2026.

Where to go in and around Weddington, with the town each one sits in and the source for its hours and prices, checked Friday, October 9, 2026.

Place	What you get	Source
Hunter Farm, Weddington	Wagon ride, petting barn, pumpkin patch. $14, under 2 free	thehunterfarm.com
Weddington Optimist Park, Weddington	Ball fields and trails. Mon to Sat 8am to 10pm, Sun 1pm to 10pm	wcwaa.org
Colonel Francis J. Beatty Park, Matthews	Walking trails, lake, recreation center. Mecklenburg County	Town of Weddington plan, p. 20
Dogwood Park, Wesley Chapel	Playground and fields at Lester Davis Road and NC 84	Town of Weddington plan, p. 20
Marvin Efird Park, Marvin	Trails and open space in the Village of Marvin	Town of Weddington plan, p. 20
Four Mile Creek and Flat Branch greenways, Charlotte	Paved and natural-surface greenway, Mecklenburg County	Town of Weddington plan, p. 20

When people ask me what there is to do out here, I give them the same answer I give buyers deciding between Weddington and a town with a real main street. You’re trading walkable for quiet, and the trade only works if you’re genuinely fine driving five or ten minutes for the rest of it. Most people who move here are, and the ones who aren’t usually figure that out on the second weekend rather than the second year.

Hunter Farm, and what a visit costs

Go here first. The Hunter Farm at 13624 Providence Road is a working family farm that opens to the public by season, and the fall season is the big one. It runs Friday, September 25 through Sunday, November 1, 2026, so you have about three weeks left.

The wagon ride is the whole point. It carries you out to an interactive petting barn where you can feed and handle the animals, and every rider goes home with a pie pumpkin. It’s $14 a person, children under 2 ride free, and you need a ticket from age 2 up. Reservations are recommended, though the farm builds slack into its schedule, so walk-in slots are often open even when the online ones look full.

One thing to know before you go, because it catches people out: you can’t walk out to the barn on your own. The farm says so plainly, and the wagon is the only way to see the animals. No dogs either, at any time.

Hours run Monday closed, Tuesday 3pm to 7pm for the pumpkin patch only with no wagon rides, Wednesday through Friday 3pm to 7pm, Saturday 10am to 7pm and Sunday 11am to 7pm. The pumpkin patch carries NC-grown pumpkins and gourds in carving and decorative sizes, and there’s a Market Barn with local jams, honey, eggs and gifts.

Farm Fridays are the evening version, 4pm to 8pm, with live music, food trucks and adult beverages. Three were scheduled this season: September 25 with Corey Ward, October 9 with Chip McGee, and Friday, October 23 with Cameron Moore, which is the last one of 2026. Special event parking is $10. Call the farm at 704.846.7975 if you want to check anything before you drive over.

Worth knowing for the spring, too: the farm does pick-your-own strawberries at $4.50 a pound, with the crop usually ready around the second week of April.

Weddington Optimist Park, the park in town

This is the one park inside Weddington, and it’s open to anyone. It sits on NC Highway 84 with two ways in, the upper entrance at 5211 Weddington Road and the lower one at 5205 Weddington Road. Hours are Monday through Saturday 8am to 10pm and Sunday 1pm to 10pm, with the gates locked at 10pm unless a game is still running. Sunday mornings are closed, which is the detail that trips up anyone planning an early walk.

The town doesn’t own it, and that’s a nice piece of local history rather than a technicality. The Weddington Optimist Club formed in 1980, and in 1987 ten of its members bought 16 acres and built the original ball fields themselves. Those fields are leased today to the Wesley Chapel Weddington Athletic Association, which runs baseball, softball, soccer, football, basketball, cheer and wrestling out of the park. If you have a child who wants to play a sport in Weddington, this is where it happens.

Two rules to know before you load the car. No dogs or pets anywhere in the park, and no tobacco. Houses back right onto the property, so the association also asks people to keep the noise down and specifically bans car horns and air horns during games.

For walking, the Town of Weddington’s 2024 Comprehensive Land Use Plan notes that the Optimist Park property “contain numerous trails,” which makes it the closest thing to a walking loop you’ll find without leaving town. If you want a dog-friendly option you’ll need to drive, and Indian Trail’s dog park is the nearest one with published rules and fees.

Three more parks within about four miles

Here’s the useful part, and it comes from an unlikely place. Weddington’s own 2024 land use plan doesn’t just describe the town, it names the parks residents actually use, with directions. The plan’s list is better than anything a travel site will give you, because the people who wrote it live here.

Colonel Francis J. Beatty Park is the big one. The plan places it “just west of Weddington-Mathews Road” and says it “contains numerous walking tails along Lake Pointe Hall and the recreation facilities.” It’s a Mecklenburg County park about 2.9 miles from the middle of Weddington in a straight line, it carries a Matthews address at 4330 Weddington Road, and with roughly 1,900 Google reviews at 4.7 stars it’s the most used park anywhere near here. Lake, trails, playgrounds, ball fields and an indoor recreation building.

Dogwood Park at Wesley Chapel is the closest of the three, a little over two miles out, at the corner of Lester Davis Road and NC 84. The mailing address reads Waxhaw, the park is in Wesley Chapel, and it’s the one most Weddington parents end up at for a playground run.

Marvin Efird Park sits in the Village of Marvin at 8909 New Town Road, the furthest of the three at just under four miles, also with a Waxhaw address. Trails, open space and a quieter feel than Beatty.

If you want to see what a town looks like when it owns its parks outright, Mint Hill runs eight of them, and the contrast is a fair way to think about the tradeoff Weddington has made.

Where to walk, and the two greenways just north

Weddington has no greenway of its own. The town’s 2024 plan states it directly, under its Trails heading: “The Town of Weddington does not contain public trail facilities.” The same page adds that there are no dedicated bike lanes either, and that cyclists share the road.

What the plan does instead is point you north. It names the Flat Branch and Four Mile Creek greenways, both run by Mecklenburg County, and notes they’re “only a few miles north of Town Hall.” Four Mile Creek is the longer paved option and is popular enough to carry hundreds of reviews. Flat Branch Nature Preserve is the quieter, more natural-surface one, and it is the closer of the two.

The town hasn’t settled the question of whether it wants its own. In the public comment appendix to that 2024 plan, where residents pinned ideas to a map and voted on them, a proposal that the town “form an alliance with the operators of Optimist Park to expand offerings for Town residents” drew 65 up votes against 15 down, and a walking trail along the creek drew 62 to 15. We followed the town’s separate park proposal in detail in our piece on the Weddington town park.

Pizza, bagels and the Providence Road row

Weddington’s everyday stuff is concentrated in one shopping center where Providence Road meets Weddington Road, and it covers more than you’d expect from the size of it. The Harris Teeter at 13639 Providence Road is the town’s grocery. Papa’s Pizza To Go is at 13649 and Poppyseeds Bagels at 13645, which is the Saturday-morning stop for a lot of people here. Southeastern Gymnastics and the Weddington Activity Center share 13601, and between them they run a good chunk of the town’s kids’ programming. A nail salon and a pet groomer fill out the row.

That’s the commercial side of Weddington. No brewery, no coffee shop, no restaurant row. When the town asked residents in 2024 whether it should change that, the answers came back split and the plan records no consensus, with comments running from “Town core is perfect as it is” to “Would love to see a real town center.” Both sides are printed in the document with vote counts, which is more candour than most towns offer.

One more place worth knowing about: the Weddington Swim and Racquet Club at 4315 Weddington Matthews Road. It’s a members’ club with a pool, tennis, pickleball and a swim team, not somewhere you can turn up for the afternoon. If you’re moving in with children who swim competitively, it’s the one to look into early.

Hunter Farm is the thing I point newcomers to first, and not only because it’s the one real attraction. It’s the place where Weddington stops feeling like a collection of subdivisions and starts feeling like a town with something of its own. A family has farmed that ground for a long time and chose to open it rather than sell it, which is a decision you can see the result of every October. If you move here and only do one local thing in your first year, do that one.

Is anything on the town calendar this fall?

Not right now, and it’s worth saying so plainly rather than sending you looking. The Town of Weddington publishes a calendar that separates special events from government meetings, and filtered to special events it shows nothing in October 2026, nothing in December 2026, and a single November entry that is Town Hall closing for Veterans Day. Everything else on it for all three months is a council or board meeting.

That isn’t the whole year, though. The town’s Park and Events Advisory Board exists specifically to run events, and its published duties name seasonal festivals, the Christmas tree lighting, Town Hall decorating and coordination with neighboring towns on things like the Waxhaw Fourth of July parade and the Monroe Christmas parade. The town also runs an Easter egg hunt in the spring and has done food truck evenings. The dates simply haven’t been posted for this fall yet, so check the town’s news page closer to the holidays.

For autumn events that do have confirmed dates, Hunter Farm’s season above is the one inside Weddington, and our South Charlotte fall events roundup carries the ones we’ve confirmed with organizers across the rest of the area. Downtown Waxhaw, about fifteen minutes south, is the nearest place with a steady calendar of its own.

Why your address might say Matthews

This one comes up constantly, and it’s worth two minutes because it changes what you can find online. Weddington has no ZIP code of its own. It shares 28104 with four other towns, and a slice of Weddington falls into 28173, which addresses as Waxhaw.

By land area, 28104 is 43.20% Weddington, 25.59% Stallings, 9.60% Indian Trail, 7.25% Wesley Chapel and 1.40% Matthews, with the remaining 12.96% in Charlotte, Hemby Bridge and unnamed land. So a website that builds a town page by filtering on a ZIP code is going to be wrong in both directions, handing you Stallings businesses as Weddington and filing Weddington ones under Waxhaw.

You can see it inside one building. Six units in that Providence Road shopping center carry two different town names: the Harris Teeter, the nail salon and the pet groomer address as Matthews, while the bagel shop, the pizza place and the gymnastics gym address as Weddington. Same parking lot. Google even lists Hunter Farm as Weddington and the farm’s own pumpkin patch as Matthews, at the same street number.

None of which changes your taxes, your schools or your trash day. It mostly means that when you search for something near you, widen it to Matthews and Waxhaw or you’ll miss half of what’s close. We walked through a version of the same puzzle in our piece on which county Stallings sits in.

And it explains why the “things to do in Weddington” lists you’ll find are so strange. One of the pages ranking for that search promises 25 things and lists five, two of which don’t appear to exist and two of which are in Charlotte, including a park on Tyvola Road in Charlotte, a good twenty minutes north. Search for parks in Weddington and you’ll get results for Weddington Road in Concord, forty miles off, which is a different road in a different county. Go by the four parks named earlier instead.

Frequently Asked Questions About Things to Do in Weddington NC

What is there to do in Weddington NC?

Inside the town, two things worth planning around. Hunter Farm at 13624 Providence Road runs seasonal wagon rides to a petting barn plus a pumpkin patch in fall and pick your own strawberries in spring. Weddington Optimist Park off NC Highway 84 has ball fields and trails and is open to the public. Within about four miles you also have Colonel Francis J. Beatty Park, Dogwood Park at Wesley Chapel and Marvin Efird Park, plus two Mecklenburg County greenways a few miles north.

Is Hunter Farm in Weddington NC open to the public?

Yes, by season. The 2026 fall season runs September 25 to November 1, with the farm closed Mondays, open 3pm to 7pm Tuesday through Friday, 10am to 7pm Saturday and 11am to 7pm Sunday. The wagon ride to the petting barn is 14 dollars per person and children under 2 ride free. You cannot walk out to the barn on your own, so the wagon ride is the only way to see the animals, and no dogs are allowed on the property.

Does Weddington NC have a park?

Yes, one. Weddington Optimist Park on NC Highway 84 is open to the public Monday through Saturday 8am to 10pm and Sunday 1pm to 10pm. A nonprofit owns and runs it rather than the town: the Weddington Optimist Club bought the land in 1987 and the Wesley Chapel Weddington Athletic Association operates it today. No dogs or pets are permitted inside the park.

Are there walking trails or greenways in Weddington NC?

Not public ones run by the town. Its 2024 Comprehensive Land Use Plan says the Town of Weddington does not contain public trail facilities, and that there are no dedicated bike facilities either. The same plan notes that the privately run Optimist Park property contains numerous trails, and it points residents to the Four Mile Creek and Flat Branch greenways in Mecklenburg County, a few miles north of Town Hall.

Why do some Weddington NC addresses say Matthews?

Because the mailing address and the town boundary are two different things, and Weddington has no ZIP code of its own. It shares 28104 with Stallings, Indian Trail, Wesley Chapel and Matthews, and only 43.20 percent of that ZIP code sits inside Weddington. Part of the town also falls in 28173, which addresses as Waxhaw. Six units in one Providence Road shopping center carry two different town names, so when you search for something nearby, widen it to Matthews and Waxhaw.

What county is Weddington NC in?

Union County. The General Assembly formed Union County out of Mecklenburg and Anson counties in 1842, and Weddington was incorporated much later, on May 2, 1983, taking its name from Reuben B. Weddington. The county matters for parks, because the nearest county greenways belong to Mecklenburg rather than Union, which is why a few of the best walking options nearby carry a Charlotte address.

About the Author

Steve Jarrell is a licensed North Carolina and South Carolina broker and the team lead of The Longleaf Group at eXp Realty, which he co-leads with his wife Amanda. Before real estate, Steve joined VisualTour as President, led its rebrand to Paradym, and led the company to its acquisition by Constellation Software in 2020. He holds an MBA from the University of Tennessee with concentrations in Marketing and Innovation. The Longleaf Group is an eXp ICON Team and a RealTrends Verified Top Team by Volume for 2026, with 140+ five-star reviews.

Steve lives in Weddington and sells across South Charlotte every week, so the question of what there is to do out here is one he answers for buyers more or less constantly.

How we sourced this

Every hour, price and rule here came from the operator’s own page, and the parks are the ones the Town of Weddington names in its own adopted plan. Checked Friday, October 9, 2026.

• The Hunter Farm, Fall Season for the 2026 dates, hours, Farm Friday dates and parking fee, its 2026 fall booking page for the wagon ride price, and Visit the Farm for the petting barn rules and strawberry pricing
• WCWAA, Facilities and Park Rules for the Optimist Park entrances, hours and rules, and Weddington Optimist Club for the 1980 and 1987 history
• Town of Weddington, 2024 Comprehensive Land Use Plan, page 20 for the trails and nearby parks list, page 4 for the incorporation and county history, page 66 for the town center discussion, and the public comment appendix for the resident proposals and their vote counts
• Town of Weddington calendar for October, November and December 2026, and the Park and Events Advisory Board for the events it is responsible for
• Weddington Swim and Racquet Club for its address and membership structure
• U.S. Census Bureau TIGERweb for the town boundary and county, and the 2020 ZIP code to place relationship file for the ZIP 28104 and 28173 shares

One thing we could not pin down. The Hemby House at 7003 Weddington Matthews Road shows up in listings as a historic site, and the page its listing points to on the Weddington United Methodist Church website returns a 404, so there are no hours or visiting details to give you yet.

Last updated: October 9, 2026.