About 25 kilometres north of Concord, Canterbury Shaker Village preserves one of the largest and most complete Shaker communities in the United States. Twenty-five original buildings, dating from 1792 onward, sit in a quiet pastoral setting on a hill above the Merrimack Valley. The white clapboard meeting house, dwelling houses, schoolhouse, laundry, and infirmary all survive intact, set among the kitchen gardens and orchards that fed the community.
Guided tours run twice daily from May through October and explain the Shaker beliefs — celibacy, communal property, equality of the sexes, and the conviction that work was worship — that shaped every aspect of life here. The craftsmanship still impresses: clean lines, joinery so precise it looks like cabinetwork, and a sense that nothing was made without thought. The gift shop sells reproductions and locally made baskets, and the on-site restaurant, The Shaker Box Lunch, serves seasonal dishes drawn from Shaker recipes.