Strawberry Banke Museum

The Strawberry Banke Museum connects visitors to America’s past via 10 acres of restored houses, exhibits, historic landscapes and gardens as well as interpretive programs that tell the stories of the local people from the 17th, 18th, 19th & 20th centuries. Slated for demolition in the 1950’s, this site was rescued from the poorly conceived urban renewal policies of the time by a conscientious group of citizens who formed the Trustees of Strawberry Banke, Inc.

The Piscataqua Garden Club had already employed Rudi Favretti, a renowned authority on historic garden design, to create a master landscape plan for Strawberry Banke using design concepts employed up until the year 1825. The idea was to impart the feeling of the old working wharf side town of the late 18th/early 19th centuries with fencing that defined private space. The 1976 Founders Fund Award was given to install picket and board fences which protected archeological work happening on the property. Also, the award established an orchard with varieties of fruit trees and bulbs common place to that era and small gardens were planted outside some of the houses to make the Strawberry Banke experience authentic to the time period.

The Piscataqua Garden Club has continued its support of the museum with involvement with events and programs such as History in Bloom, where period flower arrangements are displayed in the historic houses; an endowment fund for garden maintenance; Listen to the Landscape audio tour of the grounds; cleaning and planting the gardens seasonally; decorating the houses for the Candlelight Christmas Stroll and helping fund a children’s horticultural teaching program.