Ellis Park / Tampawardli (Park 24)

Curated by Adelaide Park Lands Association

This Park is best known as a venue for soccer and cricket. But it has some hidden remnants of rare native vegetation, and is a key part of the Park Lands trail.

One of the main features of this trail is discovering what USED to be here and is now long-forgotten.

45-01 About Park 24

It's just over 35 hectares, and is bounded by; • the railway line through Mile End, • Sir Donald Bradman Drive • West Terrace; and by • Glover Avenue, which is the continuation of Currie Street Naming This area has been…

45-02 Sport in Park 24 – Comets building

Back in 2017, the City Council gave approval for a proposed new building that was described (at the time) as: “incorporating an under croft or similar design solution that minimises visual impact on the Park Lands.” The concept of an undercroft was…

45-03 Signals Station – Post and Telegraph site

As early as 1841 there was a flagpole erected at the site to give the Adelaide business community shipping information. A “flagstaff keeper” would climb a tower, and using a telescope, could see whether a ship had arrived in the Gulf and what sort…

45-04 Quarry, Rubbish dump, Works depot

The practice in the mid-1800's in various parts of the Park Lands was to mine stones, or rubble from various pits – called “Blinding pits”. In country areas, local governments still do this today. They call them “rubble pits”. and they take…

45-05 Lie of the Land

The colonisation of Australia effectively dispossessed Aboriginal people who had lived on this continent for tens of thousands of years. In the Adelaide region, the First Nations people are known as the Kaurna people. There are some general…

45-07 Native apricot tree

Most of the trees within the Adelaide Park Lands were planted after European settlement, and chosen by various Adelaide City head gardeners over the years. However there are some remnant native species that still exist having survived despite human…

45-08 Centre of the Park

In 1849 a law approved 1.6 hectares of the Park for a military barracks, where the Adelaide High School now stands. However, the barracks were never built. Instead the site was re-allocated in 1860 for an Observatory. There is information about…

45-09 Adelaide's official weather observation station

The first records of rainfall in Adelaide were taken in this Park in 1838, by George Kingston who was the Deputy Surveyor to Colonel William Light. Later, South Australia’s first meteorologist, Charles Todd took over observations in this Park from…

45-10 Emigration Square and its surviving water well

In 2010 a ride-on mower, operated by a City of Adelaide gardener, hit a small hole on this oval. The mower driver reported the hole to his supervisor to see whether it needed to be filled in. An investigation was begun, and everyone was amazed at…

45-11 Bakewell Bridge -Bakewell Underpass

A concrete Bakewell Bridge was constructed in the 1920's. It had multiple pylons and the trains went under the road, in-between the pylons. The Bakewell Bridge took all the Glover Avenue road traffic up over the top of the railway line and down…

45-12 Road re-alignments – Park 24 boundary changes

Up until 1925, the northern boundary of Park 24 was a different road, to the north of here, called Mile End Road. Mile End Road was a straight east-west road, that connected Hindley Street at one end, with Henley Beach Rd at the other end. …

45-13 The former Adelaide Observatory

An area of 1.6 hectares was set aside in 1861. This was organised by the “Government Astronomer” Charles Todd who until that time had been running the “Observatory” functions from his home in North Adelaide. This was before Federation so there was…

45-14 Adelaide High School

Those two historic school buildings still exist. The one in Currie Street is now the Adelaide Remand Centre. The old building in Grote Street is used as a pre-school. They were the two sites of the Adelaide High School. When it opened in 1908,…

45-15 Mini-forest – site of former Weather Bureau

The site was returned to Park Lands only in 1979. From the mid-1800’s it had been part of the Observatory, next door. In 1940 the Commonwealth Weather Bureau (as it was then called) was established here, right on the corner of Glover Avenue and…