Victoria Park, Brisbane

About

Victoria Park, also known by its Turrbal name of Barrambin, is a heritage-listed park located in Spring Hill and Herston in Brisbane, Australia. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 3 December 2007. The site was formerly a public golf course that opened in November 1931, before it was converted back into a public park in June 2021 as part of ongoing urban renewal. In March 2025, it was announced that a 63,000-seat stadium will be constructed at Victoria Park / Barrambin for the 2032 Summer Olympics. The stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the track, field and athletics events. Prior to colonisation, Victoria Park / Barrambin was a traditional meeting place of local groups and the site of cultural gatherings with approximately 400 people residing on the land. A British settlement was formed on part of the land in the 1840s, named York's Hollow, which was initially co-existent with Aboriginal camps before it gradually grew and displaced the local Turrbal groups. Several killings of Aboriginal people and burning of camps also occurred throughout the 1850s and 1860s, as well as individual killings of Aboriginal Elders.

Victoria Park is also known as Barrambin, which means "the windy place" in the traditional language of the Turrbal peoples. The area of Victoria Park closest to the site of the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital and the Mayne Railway Yard at Bowen Hills was likely known more specifically as "Walan". It was traditionally a meeting and gathering place for Indigenous groups travelling through the area, as well as a cultural site for corroboree, dance, hunting and fishing. Traditional spearing challenges between Indigenous families would also be held at the site, near the RNA showgrounds, which attracted white spectators after settlement of the surrounding areas.

At the time of British settlement, the number of Aboriginal Australians living at Barrambin was significantly more than the number of settlers. Dr Ray Kerkhove of the University of Queensland described the sharing of resources between Indigenous camps and the York's Hollow settlement on the site. During this period however, there were two significant attacks against Aboriginal groups by colonial police and the British Army, as well as several killings of Aboriginal leaders and Elders.

From the time of settlement through to as late as the 1910s, some settlers would allow Aboriginal people to camp on land despite the colonial government not designating any land in the Brisbane region for use by Aboriginal groups.

There were a large number of creeks that snaked through Barrambin, serving as de facto borders between Aboriginal families camping on the site. British settlement resulted in Aboriginal people being chased off land by police and having to cross these borders. Areas across from borders were recalled as places where communities could live and hunt without being attacked or molested by colonial forces. It has been proposed that due to Aboriginal traditions, new settlers that would cross these borders without seeking permission were often assaulted and robbed.

By the 1860s, most Aboriginal people had been either been removed from, or had left, Barrambin.

In 2009, Brisbane City Council and Turrbal traditional owners agreed to add the traditional name of Barrambin as a dual name for Victoria Park, and in 2020, the Council announced plans to build an Indigenous cultural learning centre on the land.

Victoria Park covers an area of 64 hectares of undulating land in Brisbane city, in the suburb of Herston and Bowen Hills. Named for the reigning British monarch at the time, Queen Victoria, the park was gazetted in 1875.

Victoria Park provides recreational facilities such as cricket pitches, swimming pool and golf course (redesigned with a new clubhouse in 1974). It also provides much needed parking facilities during the annual Brisbane Exhibition ( Ekka ) held in the adjacent Brisbane Exhibition Ground.

Settlement and colonisation in the mid-1800s

Herston was first colonised by Europeans in 1859, although the area was being utilised from as early as the 1820s for major industrial activities such as brick-making and timber getting. This resulted in the denuding of the land, the sullying of the water, and dispossession of the local Aboriginal people, the Turrbal peoples. Victoria Park initially spanned an area of 130 hectares, however colonial development of the adjacent suburbs of Herston, Bowen Hills and Spring Hill grew into the park over the following years. Housing developments, schools, hospitals, golf courses and show grounds were permitted to be built on the park land.

During the early colonial period, British settlers named the site " York's Hollow " referencing the colonial name given to the local Turrbal Elder, "Duke of York". During the 1840s up to 400 Aboriginal people of the Turrbal group would reside around the waterholes at York's Hollow. [ citation needed ]

In 1846, police led by Constable Peter Murphy dispersed a major Aboriginal campsite, killing at least 3 people and burning camps.

In 1849, a detachment of the British Army's 11th Regiment conducted another burning, also wounding several Aboriginal people.

By the 1860s, most Aboriginal people were either removed from or had left the site.

During the mid 1800s, Brisbane was faced with an influx of immigrants due to the New South Wales Government 's immigration schemes. As a result, areas of York's Hollow (the name prior to Victoria Park) provided a settling point for various immigrant camps. York's Hollow was also utilised as a site for brick manufacturing. The arrival of John Dunmore Lang 's pioneering emigrant ship Fortitude in Brisbane in early 1849 is recognised as one of the landmark events of Queensland's history, and York's Hollow on the edge of the new township was put to good use for their accommodation. According to the Moreton Bay Courier, 253 immigrants were permitted "to form a temporary village on some of the slopes running parallel to the chains and waterholes in the neighbourhood of York's Hollow". During this time 'York's Hollow' included the area to the east of the park that is now the Brisbane Showgrounds in Bowen Hills. Many recent immigrants to Queensland in the mid-1800s stayed in these temporary camps. As Herston and the surrounding area became a popular urban development, these camps were deemed unhealthy and its residents "moved along". Several beautification projects of Victoria Park were undertaken during the late nineteenth century. This included planting avenues of trees.

When Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859, the Queensland Government made a concerted effort to provide recreational lands for the people of Brisbane, then and for the future. It was believed that the fledgling society would benefit from having open spaces included in the infrastructure. At a time when industry was choking many of the large cities in Britain and Europe, the Queensland Government did not want the same fate to befall Brisbane. Terms such as "lungs of the city" and "breathing space" were used to describe established parks in Brisbane. A Board of Trustees was created at this time to manage Victoria Park; they "expeditiously drew up a code of by-laws which provided, not only for the protection and good government of the park, but also laid down the rules for raising revenue for the improvement of the park". This revenue raising included leasing arrangements for the park.

Victoria Park borders Spring Hill on the Gregory Terrace side at the south end of the park. This area is one of the oldest suburbs in Brisbane, and Victoria Park was seen as part of this suburb. Spring Hill was home to a cross section of Brisbane society, from the very poorest living in small cottages in the lower slopes of the hill, to the prestigious and wealthy homes overlooking Victoria Park on Gregory Terrace. By the end of the nineteenth century Spring Hill was the most populated suburb in Brisbane. Victoria Park provided an open space for residents of Spring Hill, some of whom lived in crowded and poor conditions at the bottom of the hill. In the period 1870 to 1900, Victoria Park was the largest open reserve within the immediate city area.

In 1877 the Queensland Rifle Association constructed a rifle range in the north-east corner of Victoria Park. This was used both recreationally and for military and police training purposes; the range was used until 1883, when it was closed. The military, however, maintained a presence in Victoria Park, even though it was designated a "public park for recreation, convenience, health and amusement of the inhabitants of the City of Brisbane ".

The importance of an extensive railway system throughout Brisbane and the surrounding areas contributed to Queensland's successful development. Victoria Park played a part in this development with a line from Roma Street railway station to Sandgate being constructed through the park in 1882. The line was routed around the outskirts of the inner-city and through Victoria Park to minimise costs. This divided the park into two sections. After the railway was run through the middle of the park (1882), the park was further reduced with the building of The Hospital for Sick Children in 1883. The children's hospital was built on the Herston side of the park as the hill rose to the north. The park's land was reduced over time by the provision of sporting facilities at the south west of the park for Brisbane Grammar School, Brisbane Girls' Grammar School and St Joseph's College, Gregory Terrace. At the start of the 1900s a site in the north-west of the park was considered for a new Government House ; however Fernberg in Rosalie was leased for that purpose and later purchased in 1910.