The Carlton Gardens is a World Heritage Site located on the northeastern edge of the Central Business District in the suburb of Carlton, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The 26 hectare (64 acre) site contains the Royal
Exhibition Building, Melbourne
Museum and Imax Cinema, tennis courts and an award winning
children's playground. The rectangular site is bound by Victoria
Street, Rathdowne Street, Carlton Street, and Nicholson Street.
From the Exhibition building the gardens gently slope down to the
southwest and northeast. According to the World Heritage listing
the Royal Exhibition Buildings and Carlton Gardens are
"of historical, architectural, aesthetic, social and scientific
(botanical) significance to the State of Victoria."
The gardens are an outstanding example of Victorian era
landscape design with sweeping lawns and varied European and
Australian tree plantings consisting of deciduous English oaks,
White Poplar, Plane trees, Elms, Conifers, Cedars, Turkey Oaks,
Araucarias and evergreens such as Moreton Bay Figs, combined with
flower beds of annuals and shrubs. A network of tree lined paths
provide formal avenues for highlighting the fountains and
architecture of the Exhibition building. This includes the grand
allee of plane trees that lead to the exhibition building. Two
small ornamental lakes adorn the southern section of the park. The
northern section contains the Museum, tennis courts, maintenance
depot and curator's cottage, and the children's playground designed
as a Victorian maze.
The listing in the Victorian Heritage Register says in part:
"
The Carlton Gardens are of scientific (botanical) significance
for their outstanding collection of plants, including conifers,
palms, evergreen and deciduous trees, many of which have grown to
an outstanding size and form. The elm avenues of Ulmus procera and
Ulmus × hollandica are significant as few examples remain world
wide due to Dutch elm disease. The Garden contains a rare specimen
of Acmena ingens, only five other specimens are known, an uncommon
Harpephyllum caffrum and the largest recorded in Victoria, Taxodium
distichum, and outstanding specimens of Chamaecyparis funebris and
Ficus macrophylla, south west of the Royal Exhibition
Building."
Wildlife includes possums, ducks and ducklings in spring, Tawny
Frogmouths, and other urban environment birds.
The gardens contain three important fountains: the Exhibition
Fountain, designed for the 1880 Exhibition by sculptor Joseph
Hochgurtel; the French Fountain; and the Westgarth Drinking
Fountain.
History
- 1839 - Large tracts of land surrounding the original town grid
of Melbourne were reserved from sale by Superintendent Charles La
Trobe. Most of this land was later sold and subdivided or used for
the development of various public institutions, but a number of
substantial sites were permanently reserved as public parks,
including the Carlton Gardens as well as Flagstaff Gardens, Fitzroy
Gardens, Treasury Gardens and Kings Domain.
- Circa 1856 - The City of Melbourne obtained control of the
Carlton Gardens, and engaged Edward La Trobe Bateman to prepare a
design for the site. The path layout and other features of the
design were built although limitations on funding for maintenance
etc. resulted in frequent criticism.
- 1870s - The colonial Victorian Government resumed control of
the Gardens and minor changes and were made under the direction of
Clement Hodgkinson. The site was soon afterwards drastically
redesigned for the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition by the
architect Joseph Reed. The prominent local horticulturist William
Sangster was engaged as a contractor to redevelop the gardens.
- 1880 - Exhibition Building completed for the Melbourne
International Exhibition that year. Temporary annexes to house some
of the exhibition in the northern section were demolished after the
exhibition closed on 30 April, 1881.
- 1888 - Melbourne Centennial Exhibition to celebrate a century
of European settlement in Australia.
- 1891 - The curator's Lodge was completed and lived in by John
Guilfoyle.
- 1901 - First Parliament of Australia opens in the Exhibition
Building. The west annex of the Building becomes the site of the
Victorian Parliament for the next 27 years.
- 1919 - buildings became an emergency hospital for influenza
epidemic victims
- 1928 - Perimeter fence removed leaving the bluestone
footings.
- Second World War the buildings were used by the RAAF.
- 1948 to 1961 - part of the complex was used as a migrant
reception centre.
- 2001 - Taylor Cullity Lethlean with Mary Jeavons wins a
landscape award for design and building a new children's playground
of elegant yet robust resolution. The Jury described the
design as a distinctive and unified design that respects its
historic setting and addresses the demands of creative play for
spatial and visual variety.
- July 2004 - After several years of lobbying by the Melbourne
City Council, The Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton
Gardens, Melbourne, were inscribed on the World Heritage List
at the 28th session of the World Heritage Committee held in Suzhou,
China.
The Exhibition Building is still used for exhibitions, including
for the annual Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. The
Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre, opened in 1996 at
Southbank, provides more modern facilities and has become
Melbourn'e prime location for exhibitions and conventions. It also
hosts the exams for University of Melbourne in recent years.
External
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