Discover Providence’s Best Small Garden
Friday, May 21, 2010
You could be an East Sider, even an East Side gardener, and you may have never known about (much less visited) this pristine gem of a city garden.
The Shakespeare's Head Garden, tucked behind the 1772 building of the same name at 21 Meeting Street (home of the offices of the Providence Preservation Society), is an homage to Colonial gardens as well as a peaceful sanctuary just steps from Benefit Street and bustling South Main. When the Hurricane of 1938 wiped out
many Providence sites, landscape architect James Graham redesigned the building's garden in Colonial Revivial style... a look which has been simplified since then to make maintenance easer and better reflect the earlier Colonial period of the house.
In recent years, landscape design and care has been provided by PPS member and Shakespeare’s Head Association board member Lalla Searle, a practicing landscape architect who also teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTAnd as for the building, why the name so far removed from the homeland of the playwright? The building, according to the PPS, was originally used during Colonial times as a print shop and post office by John Carter, who had trained with Benjamin
Franklin in Philadelphia. The writing-related enterprises inside were advertised by a sign featuring the head of Shakespeare on a pole outside the building. The image may be gone, but the name has remained. And the graceful Colonial garden may even be sonnet worthy. Stop by and see if you agree.
Shakespeare's Head Garden, 21 Meeting St, Providence, www.ppsri.org/organization/shakespeare-s-head-garden
