Film Premier and Garden Celebration at the Hedge House

Built in 1809, the Hedge House was originally located on Court Street, where Memorial Hall is situated today. Early Antiquarian members purchased the house in 1919 to save it from demolition and moved it to its current location at 126 Water Street. In the early 1920s, a garden designed by architect Joseph Everett Chandler was installed behind the relocated house. This Colonial Revival garden was recently taken up to install site drainage and has now been fully restored, funded in part by a grant from the Town of Plymouth Community Preservation Fund.

The garden celebration kicks off with the premiere of a mini-documentary on the organization’s history. The event begins at Memorial Hall with a 4 p.m. film showing and discussion with filmmakers Jon Dorn and Scott McEwen of Brewster Productions. 

The documentary includes images of turn-of-the-century Plymouth, interviews with local residents, and snippets of recently rediscovered film from the 1920s. The film project was the brainchild of Jon Dorn, who grew up in Plymouth, holds an MFA from Emerson College, and is currently program director at Passim in Cambridge. For several years, Dorn and McEwen have coordinated summer concerts in Plymouth through their company, Brewster Productions, founded when the partners were still local high school students. After establishing an annual series of free acoustic concerts on the Hedge House lawn, Dorn became interested in the history of the Antiquarian Society and offered to create a documentary.

The film focuses on a group of local women who were inspired to create a preservation society after witnessing the destruction of Plymouth’s old waterfront in preparation for the town’s 300th anniversary in 1920.

These grassroots organizers included the remarkable Rose Thornton Briggs (1893-1981), to whom the restored garden is dedicated. Briggs’ knowledge of Plymouth history was legendary. She was an accomplished researcher on a range of historical subjects, a nationally recognized authority on colonial clothing, and served simultaneously as director of the Pilgrim Society and curator of the Antiquarian Society. A pioneer in preservation, Briggs was instrumental in shaping the early Antiquarian Society and also helped to create another enduring local legacy, the Pilgrims’ Progress. The garden celebration includes the unveiling of a granite centerpiece with a dedication to Briggs, as well as engraved granite blocks and bricks honoring historic residents of Hedge House, the women of Plymouth, members and past Presidents of the Society (including recently elected Selectman Anthony Provenzano), and individual contributors to the restoration project.

A reception in the Rose Briggs Garden will immediately follow the film. The event also includes the opening of a new exhibit at the Hedge House, A Pocketful of Posies, highlighting the fanciful fiber artistry of Salley Mavor (funded in part with a grant from the Plymouth Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council). Tickets are $25 per person; $22 for Society members. Refreshment will be served; reservations required.

To reserve tickets or for more information, contact the Plymouth Antiquarian Society at 508-746-0012 or pasm@verizon.net, or visit www.plymouthantiquariansociety.org.

Press release from the Plymouth Antiquarian Society. Share your news with Patch.