Hancock Shaker Village Offers Free Admission for Berkshire County Residents01:55PM / Wednesday, May 27, 2009
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Hancock Shaker Village will offer free admission on Saturday and Sunday, June 13 and 14, to Berkshire Country residents (with proof of driver's license). In addition, June 13 will be Family Planting Day in the Greylock Children's Garden.
Families who visited Hancock Shaker Village during the spring "Baby Animals on the Shaker Farm" event received free seed kits containing heirloom Jacobs Cattle Bean seeds, peat pots, soil and instructions. They are encouraged to return to the Village with their cultivated seeds on Family Planting Day to plant their seedlings in the new garden.
Hancock Shaker Village is situated on a picturesque expanse of farm, field, and woodland. The fully restored village includes 20 historic buildings, heirloom medicinal and vegetable gardens, 22,000 examples of Shaker furniture, crafts, tools and clothes that depict daily life, as well as heritage farm animals and gardens and hiking trails. There are daily tours, craft and cooking demonstrations, lectures, and a variety of activities for children and families.
Currently exhibited in the Chace Gallery of the Center for Shaker Studies through Labor Day is "Gather Up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection." Pioneers in the field of Shaker studies, Faith and Edward Deming Andrews collected directly from the Shakers themselves from the 1920s through the 1960s. This show features many never-before-exhibited pieces and a tale of intrigue, ethics, passion, and art scholarship. This is the last season to see "Gather Up the Fragments" in the Berkshires, as the exhibit will travel nationally in 2010.
Hancock Shaker Village is located on Route 20, just west of the junction of Routes 20 and 41. For GPS purposes, it is located at 34 Lebanon Mountain Road, Hancock, Mass. |
