Boston Flora

Tag: National Trust

  • Wednesday, April 28, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Unforgettable Gardens, Wales: National Botanic Garden of Wales, Online

    Over the last five years, the National Botanic Garden of Wales has been restoring the features of a Regency period landscape, created in the late 18th and early 19th century for William Paxton, in what is now Waun Las National Nature Reserve. This complex ecological, archaeological and engineering project has undertaken the restoration of two lakes, the iconic waterfall, cascades, installation of six new bridges, creation of new paths and the planting of thousands of trees.

    The parklands were an early example of Picturesque ideals being utilised in landscape design, characterised by the contrasts that nature can show – at one moment, beautiful tranquillity, and at the next the drama of tumbling water over cascades, a weir, and waterfall. The Garden has access to six of the fifteen paintings by Thomas Hornor who was invited by William Paxton to paint a series of viewpoints throughout the estate in 1815. The intricate details in these paintings of the parkland and lakes have provided the designers and engineers with a wealth of information on which plans for the restoration were based.

    This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions , or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 4 sessions at a cost of £16 via the link here.

    Angharad Phillips, Heritage Marketing Officer at the Botanic Garden has worked on this project for the last four years and will be revealing more about this very exciting restoration project.

  • Tuesday, April 27, 5:00 am – 6:30 am – The Water Garden at Packwood, Online

    How to dismantle a dam, a Garden Trust program of investigation and restoration at Packwood House, Warwickshire, and an examination of the English water garden, will take place online at April 27 at 5 am Eastern.

    Remedial work to the dam below the Great Pool at Packwood House enabled, over the course of four years, a detailed account to be prepared of the construction and functioning of the dam together with a wider consideration of the part that water played in the early garden there, Documented features included an Elizabethan moated garden, important seventeenth century timber drains and relics of the wild parties from the early twentieth century.

    This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 5 sessions at a cost of £20 via the Eventbrite link here.

    Stephen Wass is a researcher, about to complete his D. Phil. on the subject of seventeenth-century water gardens. In addition, he works as a commercial archaeologist. In this capacity most of his projects involve historic gardens and he is currently occupied with a series of archaeological investigations connected with the latest program of restoration at Stowe Landscape Gardens near Buckingham. He is also working to set up a new research program alongside the Oxfordshire Gardens Trust into the ‘lost’ Tudor and Jacobean gardens in the county.

  • Tuesday, April 20, 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm – Finding Vanished Beningbroughs, Online

    Beningbrough Hall, 8 miles north of York, appears to the archetypal Baroque house, set in seemingly timeless, unchanging, parkland to match. However, over 30 years of National Trust archaeological research has and continues gradually to reveal how far that perception is from the truth, rediscovering the splendors and mysteries of medieval, Stuart and Georgian Beningbroughs no longer visible to the eye. Long term archaeological research, partly on its own merits but mainly arising from mitigation for the impacts of standard operational property needs, is the only available key to unlock the past of this estate with virtually no surviving archives.

    This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions or you may purchase a ticket through Eventbrite for the entire course of 5 sessions at a cost of £20 via the link here.

    Mark Newman M.A., M.C.I.f.A, F.S.A., is the National Trust’s Archaeological Consultant for the east side of its North region, helping to advise and support the conservation of National Trust properties between Berwick and the boundaries of Great Manchester. He was first employed by the Trust on the project building the visitor centre at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal in 1988 and has advised (as well as avidly explored) the property ever since. Mark’s work for the National Trust covers an enormous range of development and research projects spread across approximately 75 properties, many concerned with the archaeology of parks and gardens. The long-term perspective of the organization sets the scene for developing an exceptionally curious and accumulative research approach, put to full use in advising conservation.

  • Wednesday, April 21, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Unforgettable Gardens, Wales: Aberglasney, Online

    Aberglasney first captured the public imagination in 1999 when the TV series A Garden Lost in Time documented the rediscovery of the structures of a cloister garden dating from 1600, hidden and forgotten beneath a jungle of weeds. Once the archaeologists and historians had done their digging, the gardening could begin. With the new century Aberglasney has blossomed into one of Wales’ finest gardens. Around its historic core, the garden is making history with inspired and innovative planting and design, embracing sound ecological principles. Truly ‘a heritage garden of excellence’.

    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 National Trust course of 4 sessions through Eventbrite at a cost of £16 via the link here.

    Penny David read history at Oxford and worked as a publisher’s editor in London, specializing in books on plants and gardens. In 1986 she returned to her Lampeter roots to work freelance, and soon became an active member of the Ceredigion branch of Welsh Historic Gardens Trust. She is author of A Garden Lost in Time ,about Aberglasney, two TV tie-ins accompanying Chris Beardshaw’s Hidden Gardens series and, most recently, Rooted in History: Celebrating Carmarthenshire’s Parks and Gardens (2017).

  • Monday, April 19, 1:00 pm – 12:30 pm – Historic Landscapes for All: Learning to Share, Online

    The second in a 10-part lecture of the Gardens Trust series, celebrating the voices beginning to be heard, online once a week on Mondays, may be heard April 19 at 1 pm Eastern.

    From 2018-20 the Gardens Trust ran a Lottery-funded project called Sharing Repton: Historic Landscapes for All. This helped us learn how to engage new and diverse people with historic parks and gardens but was only a small part of a much longer journey. This ticket which may be purchased through Eventbrite is for this individual session and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 10 sessions at a cost of £40 (students £15) via the link here.

    Linden Groves is the Gardens Trust’s Strategic Development Officer. Linden has worked for the Gardens Trust since its inception in 2015, and before that for both the Garden History Society and the Association of Gardens Trusts. She is passionate about helping everyone enjoy historic parks and gardens to the full and moving garden history out of its niche and into the mainstream.

  • Wednesday, April 14, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Unforgettable Gardens, Wales: Plas Cadnant, Online

    Just across the Menai Suspension Bridge that connects Anglesey to the North Wales mainland. lies Plas Cadnant Hidden Gardens which under the ownership of Anthony Tavernor have undergone a dramatic transformation over the last quarter of a century, taking the near-derelict property back to its breath-taking former glory. The gardens contain contrasting formal and picturesque elements and extend to some 10 acres. Journey through Plas Cadnant’s history from the early 19th Century, through to its decline, and to the rediscovery and restoration of the gardens over the last 25 years. Also learn about the Boxing Day flood of 2015; Royal visit in 2017; and plans for the future of the gardens.

    This ticket is for this individual Garden Trust session and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 4 sessions at a cost of £16 through Eventbrite via the link here.

    Anthony Tavernor has said: ‘Sometimes, you follow your heart, not your head.’ A farmer from Staffordshire with a longstanding love of gardens (he’s proud to recall that he became a life member of the National Trust when he was a teenager), spotting the property in Country Life was a chance to bring something beautiful back to life. After a 20-minute viewing of the house in 1996 and a rough attempt to work out what might remain as a garden, he made an offer and has never looked back; and on the way he has won an award from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales and gained a place for the garden in the book Discovering Welsh Gardens.

  • Wednesday, April 7, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – Unforgettable Gardens, Hafod, Wales, Online

    Hafod has been described as the finest example in Europe of a landscape designed purely in the style of the Picturesque. A remote manor house and poor estate occupying a valley on the western side of the Cambrian Mountains, it was inherited in 1780 by Thomas Johnes. He set about interpreting the genius of the place and making it accessible to visitors. It became an essential destination on a tour of Wales, and the subject of numerous sketches and rhapsodic descriptions by late 18th century tourists.

    The estate changed hands several times in the following two hundred years, but although private owners and the Forestry Commission increased the extent of plantations, little was done to change the underlying structure. Its remoteness helped to protect it from development or unsympathetic use. During the conservation project, begun in 1991, the landscape features have been revealed and some ten miles of walks restored, taking visitors to meadows, old woodlands, gardens, waterfalls, caves, and wonderful views. You may purchase a ticket through Eventbrite for the individual session, costing £5 via the link here..

    Jennie Macve has a degree in Geography from Oxford and, after moving to Aberystwyth in the late 1970s, became interested in garden and landscape history. She has been involved with the Hafod project since its outset, firstly as a volunteer. With the formation of the Hafod Trust in 1994, she became its Secretary and later its part-time administrator and research officer .She was a major contributor to its successful application to the Heritage Lottery Fund in 1998. She is the author of the guidebook, The Hafod Landscape, published in 2004 and has written or edited other publications on Hafod and local history.

    Working with Debois Landscape Survey Group, she has carried out archive and field research at historic landscapes in Devon , Hampshire and Hertforshire. Although now retired, she remains a trustee of the Hafod Trust and also of Welsh Historic Gardens Trust. She has recently moved to south Shropshire.

  • Tuesday, April 14, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Tales of Loss & Redemption: The Country House in the National Trust

    From the 1880s through the 1930s, Britain experienced a revolution in land ownership only paralleled in its history by the Norman Conquest and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Britain’s landed elites found themselves under attack by the forces of modernity on all fronts, and their bastions, the country houses, fell to the auction block and the wrecker’s ball in increasing numbers throughout the first half of the 20th century. Into this breach in the fabric of British landed society stepped a reluctant new force of social order, the National Trust. On Tuesday, April 14, at 6 pm, the Royal Oak Foundation’s Executive Director Dr. Sean E. Sawyer will discuss the National Trust’s role in rescuing some of Britain’s greatest country houses and their internationally significant collections of decorative and fine arts. From a reluctant recipient of a handful of houses in the 1920s, the Trust evolved, through its Country Houses Scheme, to lead the way in preserving houses and collections through the bleakest years of the post-World War II era. The last decades of the 20th century saw a revival of fortunes for the country house and the Trust’s adaptation as its role as a leading operator of visitor attractions. This is a story full of deaths, both mortal and material, and of daring rescues and bureaucratic blindness. This illustrated lecture, co sponsored by the Royal Oak Foundation and the Trustees of Reservations, will explore some of the Trust’s most important properties, including Blickling and Hardwick Hall, and of the families and great characters who haunt them still. The lecture will take place at Castle Hill on the Crane Estate in Ipswich. TTOR members $30, nonmembers $40. To register, call 978-356-4351, x 4050.

  • Saturday, October 19, 10:00 am – Sissinghurst: Portrait of a Garden

    Join former Sissinghurst head gardener Alexa Datta at Berkshire Botanical Garden on Saturday, October 19 at 10 am for a first-hand look at the gardening year at Britain’s fabled garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, England. Designed by writer Vita Sackville-West and her diplomat husband Harold Nicolson, this iconic landscape is one of the most renowned gardens in the world. Portrait of a Garden gives a short history of Sissinghurst Castle, the gardens, the creators, its philosophy and a visual tour that is sure to inspire. The gardens at Sissinghurst have certainly evolved over the years since its inception in 1930 and, though being conserved, it is currently being gardened in a dynamic way. Get the down and dirty on gardening from the woman behind the scenes at this classic English garden.

    Alexa Datta has been a professional gardener for over forty years and spent twenty-two of them as head gardener at Sissinghurst. She studied gardening at horticultural college in England, and has worked at several private and public gardens. In 1983 she joined the National Trust, which cares for many of Britain’s leading gardens and arrived at Sissinghurst in 1991. BBG members $30, nonmembers $35. Register by calling 413-298-3926, or online at www.berkshirebotanical.org.

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_EYWrl7M5zEc/TOrPo-DcIPI/AAAAAAAABYA/-pV9IasZbr0/s400/Sissinghurst.jpg

  • Saturday, February 23 – Berkshire Botanical Society Winter Lecture with Glyn Jones

    Glyn Jones of Hidcote will be this year’s lecturer at the Berkshire Botanical Garden, speaking about the highlights and low-lights of his time at the renowned National Trust site.  Hidcote Manor Garden is located at Hidcote Bartrim village, near Chipping Campden, in Gloucestershire, UK.  BBG member price $35, non members $42, and registration may be achieved on line at www.berkshirebotanical.org, or by calling 413-298-3926.  The time of the lecture has yet to be determined. Photo by Jason Ingram, from www.bbc.co.uk.