Goulburn’s Belmore Park, a space of memories and monuments
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Goulburn’s Belmore Park, a space of memories and monuments

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A formal urban park

In central Goulburn, on the New South Wales Southern Tablelands, is a lovely urban space known as Belmore Park. Since the mid-19th century, the park has a formal, symmetrical layout. This was typical of many 19th-century Victorian urban parks, with paths crossing it on the diagonal for promenading and adding to the balance of the space. The park is abutted by lovingly conserved 19th-century architecture and the Victorian-designed railway station, which all add to the ambience of the precinct in the town’s heritage centre.

Pleasant view across the picturesque Belmore Park Goulburn on a Sunday morning in March 2017 (IWillis)

The origin of urban parks has been traced to a number of sources. At its simplest, it was an open space that became the village green, or there were grassed fields and stadia in Greek cities, or they were an open area with a grove of sacred trees. By the medieval period, they were open grassed areas within or adjacent to a village where the lord allowed the common villagers to graze their animals. Some were royal hunting parks that date from ancient days where the king walled off a section of forest to keep out poachers. From the 18th century, French and British noblemen were aided by landscape designers like Capability Brown to design private parks and pleasure grounds. The Italians had their piazza, which was usually paved. In the United Kingdom, the establishment of Birkenhead Park in 1843, Central Park in New York in the mid-1850s, Philadelphia’s urban park system in the 1860s, Sydney’s Governors’ Domain and Hyde Park all had an influence.

Market Square

Belmore Park was Goulburn’s Market Square from the 1830s and was renamed Belmore Square in 1869 in honour of the visit of Lord and Lady Belmore on the opening of the railway at Goulburn, and a picket fence was built around the square. In the early twentieth century, it was the site of a small zoo, perhaps reflecting the zoo in the Sydney Botanic Gardens or the Botanic Gardens in Hobart, which was part of the notion of creating a ‘pleasure ground’. Belmore Square was re-dedicated as the Belmore Botanic Gardens in 1899. During the 20th century, the park became a landscape of monuments and memorials, similar to Hyde Park in Sydney and other urban parks around Australia.

View of a rare Boer War Memorial to Goulburn veterans from the South African War. The monument was erected in 1904 and unveiled by the mayor WR Costley. It is one of a handful of war memorials to the Boer War in Australia. 2017 (IWillis)

A landscape of monuments and memorials

Boer War Memorial in Belmore Park Goulburn. The memorial consists of three sections: a wide base of three Bundanoon sandstone steps; a square die with the dedication and inscriptions on marble plaques flanked by corner pilasters with ionic capitals; and a statue of a mounted trooper with rifle and bandolier built of Carrara marble and carved in Italy. 2017 (IWillis)

The band rotunda was built in 1897 to commemorate the reign of Queen Victoria. Band rotundas were common park furniture in many urban parks throughout Australia. Banding was a popular pastime in the late 19th century, and all self-respecting communities had a town band. Goulburn had a host of bands from the 1860s, and the Goulburn Model Brass Band performed in Belmore Park in 1891. The Goulburn City Band was formed in 1870 and was still performing in the First World War. This rotunda is High Victorian and designed by Goulburn architect EC Manfred. (Image 2017 IWillis)

This is the Knowlman Monument to commemorate Goulburn Mayor J Knowlman in 1910. He was mayor from 1899 to 1900. The column typifies uprightness, honour, eternity and rest. (Images 2017 IWillis)

This is a view of the Hollis Fountain erected in 1899 by Dr LT Hollis, who was the MLA for Goulburn from 1891 to 1898. It is a highly decorative Victorian-style concrete fountain that duplicates a similar fountain in St Leonards Park North Sydney that celebrates Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee (60th year of reign). Designed by FW Grant of Sydney firm Grant and Cocks. (Image 2017 IWillis)

Updated 23 September 2023. Originally posted on 12 March 2017 as ‘A space of memories and monuments’.

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