The Friends of Robbins Town Gardens and the Arlington Historical Society are Co-Sponsoring a lecture by Lucinda Brockway titled Polishing a Masterpiece: Rediscovering Arlington’s Winfield Robbins Memorial Gardens .
The talk will be held at Town Hall Tuesday April 30th at 7:30 PM. People are encouraged to walk through the Winfield Robbins Memorial Garden before the talk to see the newly restored and operating reflecting pool. Admission is free for members of the Historical Society and of the Friends of Robbins Town Gardens.
Like a work of Paul Revere’s silver or a master’s painting, designed landscapes need some regular polish to look their best. The Winfield Robbins Memorial Garden, between the Robbins Library and the Arlington Town Hall, is such a landscape jewel. In 1938, the Olmsted Brothers were hired to re-imagine R. Clipston Sturgis’ Victorian garden into a less formal, naturalistic garden setting for the famed “Menotomy Hunter” statue. Their design, and the park’s subsequent construction, are documented through plans, planting lists and Arlington Annual Reports. Preserving these landscapes takes a special multi-focal lens that looks to the past, the present, and the future with an eye to budget, maintenance and management. Using examples from recent work at Castle Hill, Naumkeag and other properties, Lucinda Brockway, Director of Cultural Resources for The Trustees, will explore the process and the promise held in these treasured spaces.
Bio:
LUCINDA A. BROCKWAY is the Program Director for Cultural Resources at The Trustees, a Massachusetts conservation and preservation organization with eleven public gardens from Martha’s Vineyard to the Berkshire Hills. Brockway and her team are deepening the public connection to plants, plant collections and the beauty of public gardens across the Commonwealth with an eye to their resiliency, sustainability and durability. An award-winning landscape designer and preservationist, Brockway’s work has been recognized by the Garden Club of America, the Garden Club Federation of Maine, the Massachusetts Historic Commission, and others. Her work has been featured in Old House Journal, Colonial Homes, Nineteenth Century and Accent as well as numerous professional and trade publications.