This is Erica Wright, pictured with her daughter, in the garden of Cintra, a late 19th-century house in Maitland.
In May 2026, Erica received the National Trust’s Young Achiever Award, for the work she did during her 2025 Vera Deacon History internship. Erica’s main job was to digitise records about Cintra House in Maitland as part of The Treasures of Cintra House project, a partnership between the University of Newcastle, Maitland City Council and Catherine Blanch, the owner of Cintra.
A Nina Crone Writing Fund award allowed Erica to draw from the record a heartwarming story about the Cintra garden and to rescue a wisteria planted in the 1920s (Australian Garden History, vol.37, no. 4, April 2026). This is garden history in the making and precisely what the Nina Crone Writing Fund aims to achieve: a new generation of people wanting to write about gardens.
You can read about the array of other Fund recipients here: https://www.gardenhistorysociety.org.au/funding/nina-crone-writing-fund/
The list demonstrates how these commissions are encouraging diverse voices in garden history.
To donate to the fund, go to https://www.gardenhistorysociety.org.au/donate/