Adelaide Park Lands

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The southern parklands of Adelaide

The Adelaide Park Lands (commonly Adelaide Parklands) are the parklands that surround the City of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia.

1 History
2 Parklands today
3 Parks
4 Buildings/institutions within bounds of parklands
5 References

[edit] History

Adelaide, from its earliest, was a planned city, designed to incorporate only the good of cities prior and to set the standards for cities following. Paramount to that vision, are the Adelaide Park Lands. Plans for the parklands were laid out by Colonel William Light, the first Surveyor-General of South Australia, in his original plan for Adelaide in 1837. Light chose for Adelaide a site next to the River Torrens and planned the city of Adelaide on a grid south of the river, while the residential enclave of North Adelaide was set north of the Torrens, separated from the central business district on a gentle hill overlooking the city. Influenced by William Penn's design of Philadelphia, Light set out the city of Adelaide on a grid of one square mile, interspaced by wide boulevards and incorporating five large public squares. Light, recognising the importance of public parks, surrounded the entire city with the Adelaide Park Lands, a virtual green-belt or, the "lungs of the city".

Since 1852, the parklands have been managed and maintained by the City Council. In the past, public use of the parklands was controlled by a ranger who patrolled the parks, regulating sporting and recreational activities in the parks and supervising the depasturing of stock grazing there.^[1]

The parklands saw very little development during the nineteenth century. Extensive felling of trees, quarrying and dumping of rubbish took place, which combined to give the parklands an unsightly appearance. In the late 1800s J.E. Brown, the government's Conservator of Forests, was commissioned by the City Council to prepare a blueprint for the beautification of the parklands. Brown presented his report in 1880, but was not acted upon until the turn of the century when A.W. Pelzer became the City Gardener. Major progress was made in planting and landscaping the parklands during his tenure (1899-1932) and further improvements such as creation of new gardens and boating lakes were carried under the authority of W.C.D. Veale, the Town Clerk (1947-1965).^[1]

[edit] Parklands today

Today, some of the parks in the parklands are the location of public and cultural buildings. Many parts have been sculpted into planned gardens and playing fields while much of the remainder are still natural Adelaide Plains bushland. Recent developments in the parklands have focused on maintenance and upgrading of recreational facilities, particularly through the Greening of Adelaide tree planting and replacement programs.^[1]

[edit] Parks

The parklands are made up of many individual parks, many shaped into formal or semi-planned gardens. Other parks are the location for institutions requiring large expanses of turf or other greenery. Planned parks such as these include:

Adelaide Botanic Gardens
Adelaide Botanic Park
Adelaide High School's sports grounds
Adelaide Municipal Golf Links
Adelaide Racecourse/Adelaide Street Circuit
Adelaide Oval
Elder Park
Himeji Gardens
Veale Gardens

All the city parks are numbered eg. Park 10. In recent years names with an indigenous connection have been created for the parks. These names are little used by the public.