Cook Park, Orange

About

Cook Park is a heritage-listed 4-hectare (10-acre) urban park at 24–26 Summer Street, Orange, a city in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed and built by Alfred Patterson from 1873 to 1950. It is also known as Orange Botanic Garden. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 24 August 2018. The park's main entrance is from the corner of Summer Street and Clinton Street.

The park is named in honour of Captain James Cook, a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy. He made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

Before the park the area was originally the old travelling stock reserve used in the 1870s as a camping ground for teams.

Cook Park, like Robertson Park, Orange, owes its existence to government action long before its proclamation. The park was created by popular petition of the local Member of Parliament. In 1853 the area was set out for housing "Reserved for Mr Templer". In 1854 the whole block which became Cook Park was withdrawn from public auction and retained as open space at the south west corner of the township. Though the 1860 plan still showed the details of the abortive subdivision in 20 lots, the 1864 plan marked the block as "proposed reserve" and so it remained. In the 1870s there was a second attempt to develop the site and a second public petition.

The cannon in Cook Park was obtained from a collection distributed throughout NSW after cannons became obsolete for the defence of Sydney Harbour. It was obtained from what is now Sydney City Council in 1870. It bears the initials G3R, indicating that it was made in the reign of George III (1751–1820). It has been identified as a 11-kilogram (24 lb) smooth bore, cast about 1806 at the Carron Iron Foundry in Scotland.

The park was proclaimed in 1873 and officially named in honour of Captain James Cook in 1882. The reserve was naturally swampy: Mr Sheridan recalled how his friend Harry Albon talked of paddling there and catching frogs and tadpoles as a small boy in the 1870s. In April 1882 the name Cook Park was applied to the area in honour of Captain James Cook and in the late 1880s or in 1890 plantings began, the first plantings worth A£ 20 being made by Council staff. Some may have even been planted as early as the 1870s. The earliest plantings included elms ( Ulmus sp. ), oaks ( Quercus sp. ), lindens ( Tilia sp. ), poplars ( Populus sp. ), redwoods ( Sequoia sp. and Sequoiadendron giganteum ), cypress ( Cupressus sp. ) and ash ( Fraxinus sp. ) trees. c. 1882 – four deodar cedars ( Cedrus deodara ) were planted. These are now approximately 140 years old. Also a big tree/ redwood ( Sequoiadendron giganteum ). This tree is one of the earliest in Cook Park.

Lawns and flower beds, and a gravel walk, conservatory and two pavilions were also constructed; from there on the park developed and took shape. Shrubberies, annual beds, bulb beds and exotic trees all became a feature of the park. Much of the design of the straight paths and rows of trees remain in place. A good example of a High Victorian style public park, Cook Park has a series of paths radiating from a central hub in which stand the bandstand and the John Gale Memorial Fountain.

In 1887 Andrew Patterson was employed as the first curator and was instrumental in the development of the park during this early period. In that year a Caretakers Cottage was built at a cost of A£185. Another curator Mr Bastick and his son formed two generations serving this park as curators. The cottage/lodge was named Bastick Cottage to honour former parks and gardens supervisors (father and son) who gave a total of 90 years service to Orange. They lived in this cottage/lodge, which was used up until the 1970s. It is now used as a craft shop.

There is evidence (records) of transfers of trees from Bloomfield Mental Hospital to Cook Park and Duntryleague - the hospital grounds being used as a kind of holding area. To make a virtue of the water supply, a small lake was created in the park in 1890, with an island in the middle. The ornamental lake on the park's south-western edge was excavated about 1880. Today it is a duck pond and provides a site for picnics. Many ducks live on its islands and goldfish and tortoises live in the pond. Picnic tables and swings are located nearby.

The remarkable assortment of trees, shrubs and flowers, with a conservatory and the two rustic pavilions mostly date from the 1890s. The James Dalton Fountain was donated in 1891 by very prominent Orange townsman, James Dalton, a wealthy merchant who was part owner of Dalton Bros store, now the site of Grace Bros. It was erected in the park on the central axis off Summer Street near the central bandstand. It is built of cast iron and the water falls from a central pipe down over three levels. On one of these levels four boys with urns stand on an acanthus embossed plinth. Above this level there is fern frond decoration and three storks. The Clinton Street-Summer Street corner gates were erected in the 1890s.

A lodge, erected in about 1900, is built of sandstock brick and has a corrugated iron roof. Two more lakes were excavated by 1908, full of gold and silver fishes and turtles. A further fountain in memory of John Gale was erected in 1908 (and remodelled in the 1920s).

The octagonal bandstand with its attractive carved wooden fittings, from which "the Orange Band discourses sweet music" opened on 12 March 1908, bringing the park very much to its present condition, the town band having decided in 1907 to build bandstands in Cook and Robertson Parks. The bandstand is octagonal and built on a brick foundation. It has carved timber columns and a railing and a weatherboard ceiling. The frieze is of carved timber and the peaked roof is tiled. Original gas fittings and music stands are extant. A delightful set of photographs of Cook Park was published in the Orange District Guide for 1908 and gives a good basis for modern comparison.

In the 1920s the fountain was remodeled and it took on its present form. A small lake was built in the park in 1890. In 1938 the ferneries were built and this structure contains the fountain from the original bush house, this fountain being cast iron and having swan modelling. The park has two sets of notable cast iron gates. Of these the most impressive are those on the Clinton Street-Summer Street corner which were erected in the 1890s. The other set, on the Summer Street-Sampson Street corner, were made in Parkes and were moved from Orange's Robertson Park to Cook Park in 1927. They were made by Dick Venebles of Parkes and paid for by funds raised by holding a sham fight and military display at the Gosling Creek Water Reserve.

During the depression of the 1930s numerous unemployment relief projects were carried out in Orange. These included the building of a new conservatory and fernery in Cook Park. The Blowes Conservatory was finished in 1934 was donated by Mayor A. Blowes to grow tuberous begonias in. Blowes became interested in these plants when C. W. Curran, a local storekeeper introduced them in the town. A large number of the original plants were donated by the City of Ballarat. It has retained a high reputation for its begonia displays.

The original aviary was donated by Dr Wally Maws, Mayor of Orange 1936–44 and 1948–50. It was enlarged in 1995. The latticed fernery was completed in 1938: incorporating two pieces of Daltoniana: the John Gale Memorial Fountain of 1891 is now located inside the fernery. It was originally located on an island in the centre of a small lake which was remodelled into the Frank Mulholland Memorial Garden. The other Dalton piece is the weathervane which had rotated above the Duntryleague stables in the 19th century.

The fernery was later restored as a bicentennial project in 1988. It contains many tree ferns and other shade loving plants. Also in 1938 the Frank Mullholland Memorial Garden, a sunken garden with sundial, was dedicated. Mullholland was Town Clerk from 1895–1935. The sunken garden and sundial were donated on 14 February 1938 by the Hon E. S. Spooner.

1940s – The German "Whiz Bang" Gun stood in Robertson Park for many years. It had been captured on the Somme in France by the 33rd Battalion of the 9th Brigade 3rd Australian Division. Many soldiers of this Brigade came from the Orange district. It was allocated to the Memorial Hall Trustees. It was removed from Robertson Park to Cook Park in the 1940s. Cook Park has many mature plantings and stands on Orange's main street. It is one of a number of public parks in the city and has won many awards for its displays.

The park was classified by the National Trust of Australia (NSW) in 1976, with special reference to the bandstand, fountain, conservatory, main entrance gates and the mature trees.

Alfred Andrew Patterson ( c. 1859 –1932), surveyor and gardener, was born in Drottningholm, Sweden and graduated from Uppsala University. Aged only 18 he was appointed lecturer at Hamburg University, Germany and afterwards left for England. He migrated to Australia, working variously as surveyor on the Mount Bischoff railway ( Tasmania ) and the Nyngan - Byrock railway, interspersed with botanical collecting in Queensland. Following a severe illness he worked as a gardener for merchant James Dalton, at Duntryleague, Orange, an 1870s mansion set in magnificent grounds. Through Dalton's influence he became the head gardener at Cook Park, Orange, and he was subsequently head gardener at Machattie Park, Bathurst, for 20 years of a formative period in its development. He spent the remainder of his career as a shire engineer in country NSW.

Both Cook and Machattie Parks were difficult sites to develop. Cook Park was on a swamp...Both Cook Park and Machattie Park were designed and developed in the grand Victorian style with wide sweeping paths, a pond, a fernery and towering exotic trees reminiscent of "The Old Country". This was not only because that style was "the flavour of the day" but it was the background that both Patterson and Lynch knew. In describing Machattie Park, Gutteridge, Haskins & Davey state: 'The design of Machattie Park is typical in many respects of the great Victorian era of Parks and Gardens where there was a return to the more formal French and Italian styles of design, as opposed to the more naturalistic English style of the 18th century. All manner of new styles were being adopted at this time along with the enormous influx of new and exotic plants being introduced from all over the globe.