Melbourne’s Wattle Park is believed to be unique in Australia — a pleasure park established, owned and operated (1916 to early 1990s) by a transport authority. The idea was to promote the tramways by creating a recreational destination. Lovell Chen recently completed a conservation management plan (CMP) for the park, commissioned by Parks Victoria.

Wattle Park is located on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. The rolling parkland, traversed by two watercourses, lies 17 km east of central Melbourne. Today it includes formal and informal gardens, playgrounds, open spaces for sports, a golf course, and a Chalet (1928) used as a venue for events such as weddings.

It was established by the Hawthorn Tramways Trust, builder of the tramline from inner Melbourne to Burwood. The Trust decided on a public recreation reserve for the end of the line, reflecting the North American precedent of terminus ‘trip attractors’. From the start, the planting emphasis was on Australian flora, and the park was at one stage proclaimed a Native Game Sanctuary. The eastern part of the park retains areas of natural vegetation.

The Route to Wattle Park by Vernon Jones c.1930-39, photo : courtesy State Library of Victoria

Landscaping, playground and sporting facility improvements were made in the late 1920s and early 1930s by what was by the amalgamated Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board. The park’s ongoing tramways connection was expressed through the deployment of tram-associated materials and redundant trams used as play equipment and picnic shelters. The park also became a focus for patriotic and memorial activities, as an early Wattle Day planting site and as a parade ground for the local peacetime brigade. One of the original Lone Pine seedlings was planted here in 1933. Management of the park was transferred to the Melbourne Transit Authority in 1983, followed by Parks Victoria in 1996.

The Fish Pond, Wattle Park c.1940, photo : Lovell Chen collection

A CMP is the principal guiding framework for the management of a heritage place. It describes what is significant, and what policies would enable that significance to be retained in a place’s ongoing use and development. Wattle Park has been confirmed as a place of historical, aesthetic and social significance to Victoria, and updated conservation policies provided in the document have since informed a recently completed master plan.

The 2023 conservation management plan supersedes the heritage conservation plan prepared by Allom Lovell & Associates in 1993.