Museum to Offer Free Admission to the Glen Burnie Gardens on July 19

Winchester, VA 7/07/08…On Saturday, July 19, the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (MSV) will offer free admission to the Glen Burnie Gardens during Glen Burnie Gardens Day from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

For this annual summer event, visitors are invited to explore the Museum’s six acres of gardens and tour the garden Visitor Center where an exhibition tells the story of the historic landscape and a fully furnished miniature model of the Glen Burnie Historic House is on display. The gardens surround the historic house and include a Grand Allée of crab apple trees, hundreds of blooming rose bushes, precisely trimmed boxwood hedges, statues, fountains, colorful perennials, a Chinese Garden, and a Water Garden featuring a pond stocked with golden trout.

Built in 1794 by Robert Wood, son of Winchester founder Col. James Wood, the Glen Burnie Historic House was preserved and restored by Julian Wood Glass Jr. (1910-1992) in the 1950s. Along with establishing the gardens in the latter half of the twentieth century, Glass furnished his ancestral home with an impressive collection of fine art and antiques. Guided tours of the historic house will be available during Glen Burnie Gardens Day for $3 per person.

Prior to his death, Glass established a foundation to open the house and gardens to the public and to create a museum on the Glen Burnie site. The house and gardens opened to the public in 1997. In April of 2005, the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley opened and transformed the historic Glen Burnie site into a regional history museum complex. Today the Amherst Street property bears the name Museum of the Shenandoah Valley. Designed by renowned architect Michael Graves, the new museum tells the story of the Shenandoah Valley and includes eleven gallery rooms, a Tea Room, and a Museum Store. Admission fees are not required to visit the café or the store, both located on the first floor of the Museum.

Along with touring the site’s landscape on Glen Burnie Gardens Day, Museum officials encourage event attendees to experience the MSV galleries. British Paintings from the Berger Collection is on display in the MSV Changing Exhibition Gallery through August 31, 2008. This special exhibition presents 31 portraits, landscapes, and sporting scenes from one of the most significant collections of British art in the United States. Assembled by the late William M. B. Berger and his wife, Bernadette Johnson Berger, the Berger Collection is housed at the Denver Art Museum. The MSV display marks the first time that works from this collection have been on public view outside of Denver. During Glen Burnie Gardens Day, gallery admission will be free to youth 18 and under. The regular gallery admission rate of $8 for adults and $6 for seniors will apply on Glen Burnie Gardens Day.

The Glen Burnie Gardens are located on the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley campus at 901 Amherst Street in Winchester, Virginia. The MSV complex—which includes the Museum, the historic house, and the gardens—is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Additional information is available online at www.shenandoahmuseum.org or by calling
540-662-1473, ext. 235. – END –