Unforgettable Gardens - Naumkeag’s Garden Preservation as a Fine Art

This series of four talks, organised by the Historic Gardens Foundation in partnership with The Gardens Trust, explores international examples of Unforgettable Gardens, seen through the eyes of their owners, managers, creators and restorers.

The Historic Gardens Foundation is an international not-for-profit organization, launched in 1995, which works to bring together lovers of historic parks and gardens across the world. Its magazine, Historic Gardens Review provides a portal for the views of both enthusiasts and professionals and is a strong voice in championing the cause of our global garden heritage.

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This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions via the links below, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 4 sessions at a cost of £16 via the link here. (Subscribers to Historic Gardens Review will be able to purchase a series ticket for £8.)

Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.

Due to a recent Apple decision to charge a 30% fee for paid online events unfortunately you may no longer be able to purchase this ticket from the Eventbrite iOS app. Please use a web browser on desktop or mobile to purchase or follow the link here.

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Week 1. 5 October. Restoring Fehérvárcsurgó, a former family property in Hungary: Part of a series of 4 online lectures, £5 each or all 4 for £16.

Week 2. 12 October. Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens: Part of a series of 4 online lectures, £5 each or all 4 for £16.

Week 3. 19 October. Victoria Ocampo and her Sibling Gardens: Part of a series of 4 online lectures, £5 each or all 4 for £16.

Week 4. 26 October. Naumkeag’s Garden Preservation as a Fine Art: Part of a series of 4 online lectures, £5 each or all 4 for £16.

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Week 4. 26 October: Polishing the Masterpiece: Naumkeag’s Garden Preservation as a Fine Art with Lucinda (Cindy) Brockway

The gardens at Naumkeag are recognised world-wide for their iconic blue steps and grove of white birches. The property is run as a public garden by The Trustees of Reservations, who have been gifted with remarkable cultural resources that continue to connect people to place, and art to nature across iconic properties in Massachusetts, USA. A recent four-year restoration of Mabel Choate and Fletcher Steele’s masterpiece, Naumkeag, overlooking the Berkshire hills, ‘polished’ their 1926-1956 garden. Steele believed that garden making should be considered one of the fine arts. His fine attention to line, colour and texture, and Choate’s pursuit of the best horticultural selections drove the restoration. Fuelled by new programmes and events, and a business planning model based on the English National Trust, Naumkeag is now opened from early spring to late December drawing record crowds as the carefully preserved garden sparkles in every season. This lecture outlines the development of Naumkeag through its creators’ own words and engages the audience with its remarkable restoration discoveries, as The Trustees continue to polish this masterpiece garden.

Lucinda A. Brockway is the Managing Director of Cultural Resources at The Trustees. Brockway leads a team of cultural resource specialists seeking innovative solutions for cultural sites ignited by the unique legacy of each property. Brockway facilitated the curation of landscape research, planning and investments in three National Landmark sites including Naumkeag (Stockbridge, Massachusetts USA) which included rethinking the role of house, collections, landscape, and ruins for public engagement and directed new archival research to unlock the unique spirit of place at each property. A published author and landscape preservation expert, Brockway serves as instructor for the National Preservation Institute (Alexandria VA), and offers lectures nationwide each year on historic preservation, landscape history and design and served as an expert for numerous conference presentations.

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