Adelaide Park Lands
The Adelaide Park Lands are a green belt forming a figure-eight configuration of open space on both banks of the River Torrens between Hackney and Thebarton, which encloses and separates the City of Adelaide area from the surrounding suburbia of greater metropolitan Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. They were laid out by Colonel William Light in his design for the city, and originally consisted of "exclusive of for a public cemetery". One copy of Light's plan shows areas for a cemetery and a Post and Telegraph Store on West Terrace, a small Government Domain and Barracks on the central part of North Terrace, a hospital on East Terrace, a Botanical Garden on the River Torrens west of North Adelaide, and a school and a storehouse south-west of North Adelaide.
Over the years there has been constant encroachment on the Park Lands by the state government and others. Soon after their declaration in 1837, "were lost to 'Government Reserves'". In 1902, The Herald noted that a total area of had been taken from park lands. In 2018, the loss is about. The part of the Park Lands not in the "Government Reserves" have been managed and maintained by the Adelaide City Council since 1852, and since February 2007, the Adelaide Park Lands Authority has advised council and government.
On 7 November 2008 the Federal Minister for Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, announced that the Adelaide Park Lands had been entered in the Australian National Heritage List as "an enduring treasure for the people of South Australia and the nation as a whole". In fact, large areas of the Adelaide Park Lands along the north side of the complete length of North Tce, and along the north side of Port Road from West Terrace to the Thebarton Police Barracks,, and also the rail reserves,, were excluded from the "Adelaide Park Lands and City Layout National Heritage Place" listing.
History
Adelaide is a planned city, and the Adelaide Park Lands are an integral part of Colonel William Light's 1837 plan. Light chose a site spanning the River Torrens, and planned the city to fit the topography of the landscape, "on rising ground".The Emigration Regulations appearing in the South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register published in London on 18 June 1836 instructed that the site of the first town be divided into 1,000 sections of an acre each.
In early 1837, William Light proposed to the Resident Commissioner James Hurtle Fisher that the figure-eight of open space, which Light later referred to as "Adelaide Park", be reserved as "Park grounds". Light drew up a plan that included south of the River Torrens and north of the river. In addition, he included of city squares: Hindmarsh, Hurtle, Light, Whitmore and Wellington Squares, Victoria Square, four one-acre Public Reserves, and for the Park Lands.
Adelaide's characteristic geometrical grid pattern is not unique: apart from earlier precedents going back to ancient Greece, it follows part of a series of rules created by Spanish planners for their colonial cities, known as the "Law of the Indies". They included the grid pattern with a main thoroughfare, centred around a main square. There are many historical precedents for five squares, including Philadelphia in America, designed in 1682 by surveyor Thomas Holme. There are however no records showing that Light deliberately copied any cities or rules for planning.
In 1838 the Colonization Commissioners for South Australia authorised South Australia's Resident Commissioner to purchase the Adelaide Park Lands, and these instructions were carried out in 1839.
By 1839 the Park Lands were threatened by extensive timber cutting, rubbish dumping, brick-making, quarrying, squatting, and grazing. To check this, a body of special constables was instituted on 9 October 1839 by George Gawler and Superintendent Henry Inman. Inman appointed Nick Boys Bull, formerly a police sub-inspector, as Keeper of the Park Lands. Bull led an initial team of six park rangers, most being convalescent migrants thrown on government support. This dropped to two by 1840, then back to four by June 1841. Pay and rations were provided by the police department.
Since 1852, the areas of the Park Lands placed in the custodianship of the municipal corporation have been managed and maintained by the Adelaide City Council. Public use of the Park Lands 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.
A variety of now absent wildlife was still present in the Park Lands in the late 1800s, with the Greater Bilby reported as still being numerous in 1890. The former prevalence of the species - which went by the local name of pinky or pingku - is recognised as the likely origin of the place name Pinky Flat. The once abundant species was presumed completely extinct in the wild in South Australia by 1930.
The Park Lands saw development during the 19th Century, for example the Adelaide Botanic Garden, hospital, South Australian Institute, Adelaide Oval, Victoria Park Racecourse. Extensive felling of trees, quarrying and dumping of rubbish continued, which combined to give the Park Lands an unsightly appearance. In the late 19th century John Ednie Brown, the government's Conservator of Forests, was commissioned by the City Council to prepare a blueprint for the beautification of the Park Lands. Brown presented his Report in 1880, but it was not acted upon until the turn of the 20th century when A.W. Pelzer became the City Gardener. Major progress was made in planting and landscaping the Park Lands during his tenure and further improvements such as creation of new gardens and boating lakes were carried under the authority of William Veale, the Town Clerk.
In July 2007 part of the Adelaide Park Lands and City of Adelaide layout were granted National Heritage Listing status. The first remarks on the assessor's report were: "The Adelaide Park Lands and City Layout is a significant example of early colonial planning which has retained key elements of its historical layout for over one hundred and seventy years. The 1837 Adelaide Plan attributed to Colonel William Light and the establishment of Adelaide marks a significant turning point in the settlement of Australia."
Park Lands today
In the 2010s, about 25% of the Park Lands are the location of government, public and cultural buildings. Of the remaining approximately, many parts have been sculpted into planned gardens and playing fields. Some of the remainder is remnant or regenerated Adelaide Plains grasslands or grassy woodlands, of which have been designated and developed by the city council as areas for native fauna and flora. Developments in the early 2000s focused on maintenance and upgrading of recreational facilities, and removal of remnant grasslands and open grassy woodlands, particularly through urbanisation and the Greening of Adelaide tree planting and replacement programs.In the early 2000s there were proposals to redevelop [|Park16], with the construction of a grandstand to cater for the Clipsal 500 and horse racing events. [|Due to lobbying] by local resident groups, the Adelaide Park Lands Preservation Association, the media and many residents of greater Adelaide, this plan was eventually rejected by the Adelaide City Council and subsequently no longer pursued by the South Australian Government.
In December 2006 the state government passed the Adelaide Park Lands Act 2005, which established the Adelaide Park Lands Authority and a series of statutory protections for the Park Lands. At the time the Act was proclaimed, Premier Mike Rann announced that a major return of alienated Park Lands would be made at the western edge of the city. The area to be returned, 5.5 hectares of land at the west end of Park [|25], occupied since 1879 by the Thebarton Water Depot, lies between East Terrace, Port Road and the railway lines. The plans were unveiled in 2011 and the land, which was mallee box woodland prior to European settlement, was developed and landscaped with more than 23,000 trees and shrubs as an urban forest. It features indigenous species, including native pine. In 2017-2018, land at the east end of Park 25 has been used by the South Australian Cricket Association for the development of the Karen Rolton Oval and associated facilities including car parking.
Parks
Although it is a single park, for management purposes the Adelaide City Council has used the last two digits of survey sections as labels to identify smaller areas within the Adelaide Park Lands. In some, but not all, cases, roadways crossing over the Park Lands coincide with the survey section boundaries that gave rise to council's numbering. The numbering, which starts in the North Park Lands, and increases clockwise around the perimeter, was applied in September 1882.Some of the parks are more commonly known by a commemorative name, but others, such as Park 10, are still known mostly by their number.
Dual naming
Since the Adelaide City Council drew up a Reconciliation Vision Statement in 1997, they committed to a dual naming project, working with Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi, a Kaurna language project run by the University of Adelaide in collaboration with Kaurna advisors. The dual naming covers the city centre and North Adelaide, including the six public squares and Adelaide park lands. Erection of signs in each of the parks was completed on 30 June 2004, with some of the spellings being revised in the 2010s. Also at that time, the numbered parks that still had no English name were assigned one.Victoria Square, in the centre of Adelaide city, is now also known as Tarntanyangga. All 29 Parks around the city have been assigned a Kaurna name, and the River Torrens is now also named Karrawirra Parri. The renaming of 39 sites was finalised and endorsed by the council in 2012. The full list of square and park names, along with meanings and pronunciations, is available on the Council website.