Wattle Park is a park in Melbourne, Australia, located in the suburb of Surrey Hills. It is known for it's plantation of 12,000 wattle trees. It is currently maintained by Parks Victoria.

History

The park was first created when the Hawthorn Tramway Trust purchased 137 acres of land from Mrs Eliza Welch, under the condition it was to be used as a public park. The park opened on the 31st of March, 1917 when Sir Arthur Stanley planted a Golden Wattle and named the park.

Initially, due to the HTT's financial troubles further development of the park had been put off for some time. After the HTT had been almagated into the M&MTB, it was put off due to work on electrifying Melbourne's cable tramways. Planning & development of the park started in the 1920s and 30s, with a plantation of 12,000 wattle trees planted inbetween 1926 and 1928. A 9-hole golf course opened at Wattle Park in October 1937, with other facilities following later.

After the 1960s and 70s, the M&MTB had other priorities. After the M&MTB became part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority in 1983. Local residents complained to the state government about the poor state of Wattle Park. In 1991, ownership of Wattle Park was passed from the Public Transport Corporation to the Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works, which undertook a program to rehabilitate the park's landscape.

Connection with Trams

As Wattle Park for part of it's life has being maintained by Melbourne's tram operators, it retains a connection with Melbourne's tramways. The Melbourne Tramways Band (sponsored by Yarra Trams) plays at Wattle Park once a month during spring and autumn. The bodies of two W2 class trams are used as shelters at Wattle Park, and Wattle Park is the current terminus of tram route 70.

External links

• Parks Victoria: Wattle Park (http://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au/1park_display.cfm?park=207)
• TMSV: Wattle Park (http://www.tmsv.org.au/papers/wattlepk.htm)

This is a stub related to the city of Melbourne. See the WikiProject Melbourne for article coordination, and this template's What links here page (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Template%3AMelstub) for a list of other Melbourne-related stubs.