Whenever Mary Louisa Pollard returns to Irvington by way of the Robert O. Norris Jr. Memorial Bridge, the Northern Neck presents itself like a portal to another world.
With two miles of tidal saltwater between itself and the Rappahannock River’s southern shore, the Neck beckons her home.
“I just breathe a sigh of relief,” she says.
Pollard’s sense of place and love of land was never more evident than in the early 2000s, when she sought like-minded people to consider how to preserve what makes the Northern Neck so special.
The effort spawned the Northern Neck Land Conservancy…