Guided Walking Tours Of Central Park

Guided Walking Tours Of Central Park

Guided Walking Tour of Central Park

Central Park, located near the historic centre of Armidale, is a High Victorian formal town park demonstrating many of the key elements of that genre, including formal garden beds, axial planning, and symmetry.

Originating in the original town plan, the park, on a slightly sloping site, has an area of approximately two hectares (5 acres). It is dominated by mature conifers and deciduous tree species, the heights of which make it visible across a wide area. Its layout is formed by diagonal paths, originally of iron stone gravel but now of concrete, which converge on a war memorial fountain and associated garden.

Annual bed plantings complement topiary forms of old elaeganus and box shrubbery.

The war memorial fountain (1922) commemorates the Great War. Around it have been added smaller stones and plinths commemorating those who served in subsequent conflicts, particularly the Second World War.

The park also features a band rotunda (1902) constructed as a memorial to the South African (Boer) War and two associated Mediterranean cypresses.

A third memorial (1988) commemorates HMAS Armidale, a warship of the Royal Australian Navy. Central Park makes an important contribution to the nearby townscape, which includes prominent ecclesiastical buildings forming part of the individual settings.

A period park bench (1928) survives.

Within Central Park is a fine selection of trees, many of them supplied by the State Nursery at Campbelltown; these include conifers and deciduous and evergreen broadleaf trees.

Old shade trees, many dating from the 1880s and early 1900s, include Canary Island pines, two huge cypresses (Cupressus (now Hesperocyparis) macrocarpa), Chinese weeping cypresses (Funebris), Bhutan Cypresses (Torulosa), Douglas firs (Pseudotsuga menziesii), English or European oaks (Quercus robur), holly or holm oaks (Q. ilex), one cork oak (Q.suber) European elms (Ulmus procera) and cedars (Cedrus spp.). These are set in fine lawns which are shaded by the tree canopies. Some trees, such as the Lucombe oak (Q. x hispanica ‘Lucombeana’) and two Southern live oaks (Q. virginiana), one large, and one clipped, which are nationally rare.

The trees are set in fine lawns naturally inhibited by the dense tree canopy.

Central Park was State Heritage listed in December 2018.

Richard Single

Project Officer - Public and Town Spaces

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