Weston Park

Weston Park occupies most of the peninsula on the southern bank of Lake Burley Griffin opposite Black Mountain.  Griffin’s 1918 plan identifies the entire peninsula as the Australasian sections of the Continental Arboretum, with the Garden Gate Drive down the central ridge leading to a bridge across the lake.  By 1927 the area north and east of Yarralumla Nursery was earmarked for a zoo, but two years later was redesignated as a public park.  Although planting began in the area as early as 1914, the park as a public recreation space really dates from the 1970s.

TCG (Charles) Weston, the first Superintendent of Parks and Gardens and for whom the park is named, moved the fledgling Government Nursery from Acton to the southwestern third of the peninsula in 1913-14.  He was primarily concerned with the nursery and the experimental arboretum (later Westbourne Woods), but also planted parts of the future Weston Park.  These plantings included the avenue of elms along the line of Garden Gate Drive, now Weston Park Road, shelter belts and circular landscape plantings.  

Cattle grazed in the park until the 1950s.  In the 1930s some planting was done above what would be the level of the lake, and during the 1940s and 1950s more circular plots of eucalypts were added.  These circular plots give the illusion of randomness but in fact make simple and easily supervised planting layouts. In the 1960s, test plantings of water tolerant species were made along the lake shore. 

Over the years, Weston Park increased in size as the nursery was reduced.  In 1929 two thirds of the nursery area was transferred to the public park.  Many permanent plantings within the old nursery are now part of Weston Park, one of the major additions being the English Garden in 1993.  It contains mature specimen trees planted during Weston’s period. 

Since 1970 about one third of the park has been developed for recreational use.  Various activity features for young or disabled children include play structures, a large wading pool, a miniature railway and a maze.  Four sandy beaches and several barbecue and picnic areas were also established.  A cycle path round the lake passes through the southern end of the park.

Cosgrove, Carol
‘Weston’s Legacy’, Heritage in Trust, Summer 1999, pp. 17-19.
ACTHL Location:  H 720.9947 HERI

Hince, Bernadette
A Pryor Commitment:  Canberra’s Public Landscape 1944-1985. Canberra: ACT Landscape, Public Works and Services, 1994, pp. 22-33, 187.
ACTHL Location: H 715.099471 HINC

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National Trust of Australia (ACT)
“Yarralumla Nursery/Weston Park” in Register of Classified Places.

Ramsay, Juliet.
Heritage Study of the Weston Park Landscape: A Report for the National Capital Development Commission. Yarralumla, ACT: Strine Design, 1989
ACTHL Location: H 711.558 RAMS