ACT Riverina Monaro Branch: The English Garden at Weston Park, Yarralumla

The English Garden at Weston Park, Yarralumla

Introducing various approaches to historical interpretation

A FREE TOUR – Bring your friends for an autumn stroll and introduce them to the AGHS.

 AGHS has a long connection with the English Garden that abuts the Yarralumla Nursery in Weston Park. In 2006 AGHS was invited by the then ACT Urban Services Branch to comment on the Garden and the work they were proposing for the Garden.  Out of that grew a long AGHS project – a condition report was conducted and arboreal work followed, and in 2009 a self-guided walk brochure was published under the joint auspices of AGHS and the ACT Chief Minister’s Department and TAMS (ACT Territory and Municipal Services).

More recently, the Rotary Club of Canberra has facilitated the activities of Friends of Weston Park Nursery Heritage, who apart from helping to maintain and improve the site, has conducted tours building public awareness of this site within Weston Park which had otherwise been forgotten.  A few years prior to this, the Rotary Club was privileged to be given a tour by the late Dr John Gray, whose research was featured in a recent book on Charles Weston by Canberra author Robert Macklin.

In a special tour crafted for AGHS to celebrate Tree Week, Dr Stephen Utick, who is coordinator of the Friends will outline and demonstrate elements of three different approaches to historical interpretation. The site is complex and these approaches are:

• The Environmental Timescape
• People and Monuments
• Horticultural history of trees and plants, with reference to ‘centenarian sentinels’ and ‘living antiques’.

AGHS members and supporters will enjoy an autumn afternoon stroll in the English Park with an expert guide and an opportunity for discussion.

Meet at the English Garden wall in Weston Park Yarralumla at 1.30pm.   Parking is available at the car park for Heritage Nursery and Oaks Brasserie.

This event is free but bookings are necessary to cater for numbers.

Book: at Trybooking.

For further information please contact: Mary Johnson actmrinfo@gardenhistorysociety.org.au or Robyn Oates actmrchair@gardenhistorysociety.org.au.