Ashintully Gardens

Ashintully Gardens is an 120 acre (0.5 km²) estate in Tyringham, Massachusetts that is maintained by The Trustees of Reservations land trust. The gardens, and adjoining 594 acres (2.4 km²) reservation, were the gift of John Stewart McLennan Jr., and his wife Katharine. The name Ashintully comes from Gaelic Eas an Tulaich and means "cascade of the hillock".

Description

The gardens blend several natural features into an ordered arrangement with both formal and informal beauty. These include a rushing stream, native deciduous trees, a rounded knoll, and flanking meadows.

Garden features include the Fountain Pond, Pine Park, Rams Head Terrace, Bowling Green, Regency Bridge, and Trellis Triptych. Urns, columns, and statuary provide ornamentation. Foot paths, bridges, stone stairs, and grassy terraces connect various parts of the garden.

In 1997, Ashintully Gardens received the Massachusetts Horticultural Society's H. Hollis Hunnewell Medal', a prize established to recognize gardens embellished with rare and desirable ornamental trees and shrubs.

History

Ashintully Gardens came about through the efforts of two men: Robb de Peyster Tytus and John S. McLennan Jr.

Robb de Peyster Tytus

In the early 20th century, Egyptologist and politician Robb de Peyster Tytus assembled the estate from the merger of three farms in Tyringham and additional land in Otis. The land holdings of the estate with the three farms grew to almost 1,000 acres (4 km²).

On a hill overlooking the southern end of Tyringham Valley, Tytus built between 1910 - 1912 a white, Georgian-style mansion which came to be known as the Marble Palace. The mansion's main façade featured four Doric columns and was spanned by thirteen bay windows. Its interior contained thirty-five rooms, ten baths, and fifteen fireplaces. Though the Marble Palace was destroyed by fire in 1952, the front terrace, foundation, and four Doric columns remain today.

In 1913, Tytus died at Saranac Lake, New York, leaving his wife, Grace Henoys Tytus, and two daughters, Mildred and Victoria.

John Stewart McLennan Jr.

A year after Tytus' death, his widow married John Stewart McLennan, a Canadian industrialist and newspaper owner, and later Senator. She gave birth, in 1915, to John Jr., before subsequently being divorced.

John S. McLennan Jr. spent all his childhood summers at the Tytus estate, and acquired the property in 1937, following the death of his mother. He later moved into the farmhouse at the bottom of the hill, and renovated the nearby barn into a music studio. McLennan was an accomplished composer of contemporary classical music, including chamber and orchestral music and pieces for piano and organ. (In 1985 he won an American Academy of Arts and Letters music award.) He designed the elegant gardens as a parallel creative effort to his musical work,.^[1] In 1977 John began donating sections of the Ashintully estate to The Trustees of Reservations, although, he continued to live at the estate for the rest of his life.

Shortly before his death, in 1996, John and his wife Katharine donated additional land to the Trustees. The land, including the Marble Palace ruins, the farmhouse, and Ashintully Gardens, was donated with a reserved life estate for Katharine McLennan. Initially, 18 acres (73,000 m²) were reserved for Katharine; she donated 12 acres (49,000 m²) to the Trustees in 2003, retaining 6 acres (24,000 m²) with garden access, upon which her cottage resides.

After her death the title for the remaining land will be turned over to the Trustees.

The Gardens and John McLennan's life were profiled in a 2007 episode of the GardenStory series,^[1] presented by Community Idea Stations of Virginia, and broadcast nationally on American Public Television.^[2]

McLennan Reservation

Adjoining the Ashintully Gardens are parts of the remnants of the vast 1,000 acres (4 km²) assembled by Robb de Peyster Tytus.

John McLennan Jr. in 1977, in addition to his garden donation to the Trustees, he also donated 446 acres (1.8 km²) of the estate in Otis and Tyringham to establish the McLennan Reservation. The reservation was expanded in 1978, 1991 and 1995 by a total of 148 acres (0.6 km²), bringing the McLennan Reservation to 594 acres (2.4 km²).

References

↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.gardenstory.org/episodeCreativity.html The Garden as Exploration in Creativity: Ashintully, the Garden of Composer John Stewart McLennan
↑ http://www.aptonline.org/catalog.nsf/bpt/58EDEA8F58B88237852573FA008119E6?OpenDocument

External links

Protected areas of Massachusetts

Federal

National Historical Parks	Adams Blackstone River Valley Boston Lowell Minute Man New Bedford Whaling

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Other National Park Service Units	Appalachian National Scenic Trail Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area Cape Cod National Seashore

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Other	Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve West Hill Dam (USACE)

State

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Private

The Nature Conservancy	Black Pond Bog Boat Meadow Francis Newhall Woods Grassy Pond Greene Swamp Halfway Pond Island Hawley Bog Hockomock Swamp Hoft Farm Homer-Watcha Preserve Katama Plains McElwain-Olsen Miacomet Moors Reed Brook Drury Sandy Neck David H. Smith Preserve and Fire Trail Stacy Mountain Tatkon

Trustees of Reservations	Agassiz Rock Appleton Farms Appleton Farms Grass Rides Ashintully Gardens Bartholomew's Cobble Bear's Den Bear Swamp Colonel John Ashley House Francis William Bird Park Eleanor Cabot Bradley Estate Bridge Island Meadows Brooks Woodland William Cullen Bryant Homestead Cape Poge Cedariver Castle Hill Chapel Brook Charles River Peninsula Chase Woodlands Chesterfield Gorge Coolidge Copicut Woods Cormier Woods Coskata-Coatue Wildlife Refuge Crane Beach Crane Wildlife Refuge Crowninshield Island Dexter Drumlin Dinosaur Footprints Doane's Falls Doyle Dry Hill East Over Elliott Laurel Field Farm Fork Factory Brook Glendale Falls Goose Pond Greenwood Farm Halibut Point Hamlin Holmes Governor Hutchinson's Field Jacobs Hill Little Tom Mountain Long Hill Long Point Lowell Holly Lyman Reserve Malcolm Mashpee River McLennan Medfield Meadow Lots Medfield Rhododendrons Menemsha Hills Misery Islands Mission House Monument Mountain Moose Hill Farm Mount Ann Park Mountain Meadow Mytoi Naumkeag Noanet Woodlands Noon Hill Norris North Common Meadow Norton Point Beach Notchview Old Manse Old Town Hill Peaked Mountain Pegan Hill Peters Petticoat Hill Pierce Pine and Hemlock Knoll Powisset Farm Questing Quinebaug Woods Ravenswood Park Redemption Rock Rock House Rocky Narrows Rocky Woods Royalston Falls Shattuck Signal Hill Slocum's River Stavros Stevens-Coolidge Swift River Tantiusques Tully Lake Campground Two Mile Farm Tyringham Cobble Ward Wasque Weir Hill Weir River Farm Westport Town Farm Whitney and Thayer Woods World's End

Audubon Society Wildlife Sanctuaries	Arcadia Broad Meadow Brook Broadmoor Daniel Webster Drumlin Farm High Ledges Ipswich River Moose Hill North River Pleasant Valley Stony Brook Wachussett Meadow Wellfleet Bay

Other	Concord Land Conservation Trust Harvard Forest Lincoln Land Conservation Trust Lloyd Center for the Environment Lynn Woods Reservation Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary

Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (Massachusetts)

Coordinates: 42°12′55.09″N 73°10′38.12″W / 42.2153028°N 73.1772556°W / 42.2153028; -73.1772556