Polishing a Masterpiece: Rediscovering Arlington’s Winfield Robbins Memorial Gardens

Members of the Friends of Robbins Town Gardens and the Arlington Historical Society are invited to attend a special program. Lucinda Brockway will be speaking on “Polishing a Masterpiece: Rediscovering the Winfield Robbins Memorial Garden”. The program will be held at Arlington Town Hall on Tuesday, April 30 at 7:30 p.m. Visitors are encouraged to arrive early and stroll the garden and see the restored reflecting pool. The program is free for members of the Arlington Historical Society and of the Friends of Robbins Town Gardens. Admission for non-members is $5.00.

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.  
 

Brockway states: “I believe that our cultural landscapes open a three dimensional textbook to the past for contemporary citizens. These landscapes existing on a village street, an urban park, backyard garden or woodland that has grown up over a former hayfield.  The details of their stories are written in light posts, old trees, curb edgings, street widths and stone walls.  Each of us can learn to read their vocabulary if we only pay attention.  Revitalizing these landscapes is like polishing an old masterpiece, igniting new life for another generation.”

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.