Beauport Sleeper McCann Garden in MA

By Allison Robinson, WPAMC Class of 2018

More than a backdrop for the beautiful historic homes that we visited, garden spaces informed us about the dynamic relationship between people and the land that they lived on – both the ways in which the land shaped human activities and the ways in which people have manipulated the land to suit their purposes.

The gardens that we saw tended to fulfill one or two interpretive goals, capturing a particular aesthetic moment in the history of a property or serving as a place to teach visitors about labor and foodways of the past.