All Stories: 422
Stories
35-06 Stone-lined Botanic Creek in Victoria Park
This waterway doesn't flow all year, but after rain it channels water through the eastern Park Lands and eventually drains into the Botanic Gardens lake about a kilometre north.
It is unclear from City Council records exactly when the…
35-05 Sweat Track in Victoria Park
The sweat course includes opportunities for running, step-ups, bar dips (for triceps) a sit-up station, pull-ups (i.e. chin-ups) for biceps, log-lifts, and hurdles.
There are also other, more recently installed exercise stations which create a…
35-04 Petanque Piste in Victoria Park
Other parts of Victoria Park are well used for a wide variety of intensive sports and recreation - from running and cycling, to equestrian activities.
However not all of the sporting activities here require physical strength or fitness.
This…
35-03 The "Green Corridor" in Victoria Park
This so-called "green corridor" for commuters extends from Halifax Street right across the Park to Fullarton Road.
It provides pedestrians and cyclists with an attractive passage between the city and the eastern suburbs.
While this…
35-02 Kaurna history, and naming of Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi
Prior to European settlement, Victoria Park would have resembled a large flat of blue gums and grey box gums.
Oral history of surviving Kaurna elders indicates that this area was used for corroborees, burials and camping.
In 1980, indigenous…
35-01 Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi in context
Covering 72 hectares, it represents about 10% of the entire Adelaide Park Lands, the largest single Park within them.
Victoria Park/Pakapakanthi is bounded by Wakefield Road to the north, Fullarton Road to the east, Greenhill Road to the south,…
40-13 Electric Light Cricket in Park 20
Day-night cricket is very popular with the Big Bash League and one-day internationals played under lights.
But most people don’t realise that an earlier form of night cricket was invented here in Adelaide and played by hundreds of people on…
47-13 Aboriginal connection to Park 15
To the Adelaide people of the late Victorian era, one of the few aboriginal people who was well-known was a so-called ‘fringe-dweller’, Tommy Walker. He frequented and camped in the Eastern Park Lands in the second half of the 19th century.…
47-12 Wooden bridges and water “race”
The first decade of the 20th century was an economic boom time for South Australia, and the State was relatively wealthy.
Beginning in 1905, the City Council approved a series of recommendations from Mr Pelzer to improve this Park as well as…
47-11 Sports Fields and Major Events in Park 15
The first sporting oval was set up by City Gardener August Pelzer in 1906. The other two closer to Dequetteville Terrace came much later, after the 1930's.
The sporting fields are used for cricket, football and athletics. They're…
47-10 Cricket nets and pepper tree avenue
A few steps past the cricket nets, at the top of a gentle rise, a dirt road rolls away downhill, towards the west. The road is lined with about a dozen mature pepper trees.
One of the lovely things about this Park is that it's not flat. …
47-09 Early 1900's eucalyptus plantings, south-east corner
Despite the constant hum of passing traffic, this is another lovely area to walk around and keep an eye out for a variety of birds and possums that may be living in tree hollows – so-called “habitat trees”.
The shared-use walking and cycling…
47-08. Park Lands Trail in Park 15
There are two bitumen paths that both traverse King Rodney Park from north-west to south-east. One crosses Botanic Creek and links up with Bartels Road and Rymill Park to the north. The other stays on this side of the creek and links up with East…
47-07 Basketball courts
These facilities were previously used for tennis as well, but tennis was moved out to accommodate a temporary skate park, that was built here in 2016.
The temporary skate facilities were built here as a stop-gap measure after a different skate…
47-06 Disc golf
In recent years the sport has been growing rapidly in popularity but it’s still not widely known.
Players use the term “disc” although most people would know a flying disc as a “frisbee”. “Frisbee” is a trade mark. It’s just one brand of…
47-05 Botanic Creek
The creek is bordered by dense mature vegetation and provides lovely areas to rest sitting on a log or to enjoy a picnic.
Botanic Creek doesn’t run all year. It’s an “ephemeral” creek; meaning that it flows only after rainfall.
It channels…
47-04 Olive Grove, 1872
Within 20 years of European settlement, most of the Adelaide Park Lands had been stripped bare of trees. By the 1850’s the early settlers used almost all the existing trees for firewood, fence posts, and to allow sheep, cattle and horses to…
47-03 Glover East Playspace
The first Glover playground was on South Terrace (Park 20) – in December 1918. The second Glover playground was (and is) on Lefevre Tce (Park 6).
This one was proposed by Mayor Glover in 1924, for the benefit of children in the east of the…
47-02 River Red Gum and plaque
The age of the tree is unknown but it’s most unlikely to pre-date European settlement. It was probably planted in the 1870’s, or later. On an aerial photo of the Park, taken in 1936 it’s clearly visible as a large tree, even then.
At the base…
47-01 Introduction and naming
Thousands of people come through the park every day, commuting to or from the city. It is truly a family park, with almost 150,000 visits by kids using the playspace and ovals here each year.
King Rodney Park consists of an almost-rectangular…
46-19 - House and stables (formerly Duncraig) - 58 Palmer Place
Mr Duncan owned a property near Saddleworth and leased Oulnina Station, a property of some two thousand square kilometres, up until his death. He was chairman of what was then called the Waterloo District Council (now part of the Clare and Gilbert…
46-18 - Honeywill house - 51-54 Palmer Place
Only a few years afterwards life in this grand new house was struck by tragedy when Honeywill's wife, Emily. committed suicide here in their home, in December 1908. Honeywill then sold the property in 1910. Keeping a grand house for only nine…
46-17 - Bishop's Court
At the time, the South Australian Register newspaper described the proposed building as “a chaste design in the Tudor Gothic, but by no means an ambitious structure for an episcopal palace."
The architect, Mr Stuckey, died less than six…
46-16 - Christ Church and Rectory - 35-39 Palmer Place
These buildings are much older than the grand St Peters Cathedral, off Pennington Terrace, which is the centre of the Anglican diocese of Adelaide.
The integrity of the group remains high and its significance to South Australia and the City of…
46-15 - Boyd House - 27 Palmer Place
Boyd was famous from the 1950’s onwards, as an advocate of a new style of architecture, functionally suited to Australian climate and lifestyle. He wrote several widely-read books on the subject. He studied in England, Europe and the US in the…
46-14 - Roche House - 21 Palmer Place
After Arthur Ayers' death the house passed in the 1920s to Sir Collier Cudmore, solicitor; president of the Liberal and Country League in the 1930’s. He was also an Olympic gold medallist in 1908, as a rower – rowing for Britain where he was…
46-13 - Montefiore (part of Aquinas College)
It had two early owners in the 1850's and 1860's: a civil engineer, surveyor and architect named George Green and then a solicitor named Luke Michael Cullen. However this building became famous from the 1870's onwards because it was…
46-12 - Doolette house & Kindergarten Union - 95 Palmer Place
Mr Doolette arrived in South Australia in 1855 at the age of 15, with his parents, from Ireland. As a teenager, he found work at a drapery in King William Street. 20 years later, at the age of 35, he was the sole proprietor of the business trading…
46-11 - The trees of Palmer Gardens
Here on the eastern side, the garden is lined with what botanists call “Quercus palustris” – commonly known as Pin Oak or Swamp Spanish Oak.
On the northern edge is a row of jacaranda trees – which are in bloom every November.
On the western…
46-10 - Palmer Gardens Vedalia Beetle seat
Mr Koebele was the world’s first “economic entomologist”. That is to say, he was the first person to successfully use insects to control pests. He travelled the world looking for insects that could be imported to other countries to control pests…