Dandenong Park (Dandenong)
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Dandenong Park was established over 100 years ago and is historically significant, being an important arrival gateway to central Dandenong.
This Land has been a public reserve for local people to enjoy since the 1870s. Before the 1860s, most of Dandenong was farmland where horses and cattle grazed. Ten years after this, Dandenong boasted a village atmosphere, with churches, hotels, a public school, a bank, a market, and several brick-making and timber manufacturers. As the area developed, it became important to reserve land for green space and play and Dandenong Park was officially proclaimed in 1872.
Dandenong Park was a place for sport, music and recreation from the late 1870s onwards. If you'd walked through this park in the 1920s, you'd have heard the sounds of people playing sports mixed with the bellowing of cows. Grazing probably ended in the 1930s, following extensive modifications to the park. Today, Dandenong Park continues to be a place for the whole community to enjoy.
Covering an area of more than 17 hectares, the Dandenong Creek and the regional bike trail runs through this district park. Dandenong Park includes Shepley Oval, the historic home for Dandenong Park's sports facilities, with the football and cricket clubs being established in 1874.
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Dandenong Park is a destination for many community gatherings, ranging from family barbeques to community festivals.
Things to do in the park include:
- Go for a walk through the leafy park
- Enjoy the floral displays within the north area precinct
- Go for a ride along the Dandenong Creek regional bike trail
- Play a game of table tennis, basketball or futsal
- Exercise at the outdoor gym
- Check out the Peace Memorial Bridge which crosses over the Dandenong Creek
- See the display about the Dandenong Croquet Club and Dandenong Bowling Club
- Find out about the Truby King Centre which formerly occupied the site
- Go to the original entry gate
- Find the Rotary Water Wheel
- Read the story of the timber cutters in Dandenong Park
- Find out about the history of Dandenong's Drill Hall
- Make some music at the Stan Prior Soundshell
- Visit the district playground and its adjoining picnic and barbeque area
The Peace Memorial Bridge is next to Lonsdale Street between Webster Street and Thomas Street.
History runs deep at the Dandenong Creek crossing. The bridge has long been a gateway to the town's heart and remains a link between the past and present.
The Bridge was designed by the Shire's engineer, Robert Woodcock, who was regarded as one of the best engineers in Victoria at the time. The single-span wrought iron bridge, with its concrete deck and decorative concrete parapet walls, was built by contractors Messrs Reilly Bros. Work began in November 1918 and was completed by 30 April 1919. The bridge is one of few surviving engineering works constructed during the Great War using composite materials and fabrication techniques, many of which are no longer practised today.
The Peace Memorial Bridge replaced a stone bridge built in 1866 and during its demolition, a bottle containing historical documents was found. New documents from 1919 were added and it was replaced in the foundations of the new bridge. More than a thousand people turned out to see the Premier of Victoria, Mr Harry Lawson declare the bridge open on 29 August 1919.
The needs of modern-day traffic have seen alterations to the Bridge, but what survives is an enduring monument to those lives lost. The century-old words inscribed on a granite plaque on the south concrete parapet of the bridge continue to speak to the losses of the Great War that were felt by many in the local, community, 'In honor of the brave men who gave their lives to save civilisation and to commemorate the declaration of peace June 1919.'
Dandenong Croquet Club
In 1906, a group of local women formed the Dandenong Croquet Club and played a series of demonstration games on the bowling greens. Fifteen years later, the club had its own official croquet lawns at Dandenong Park. However, some matches left some members of the media questioning the women's skills:
'It is to be regretted that the players did not make a better showing ... [and] tends to make the uninitiated question whether there is any skill or merit in the game.' from The Sporting Globe, 31 October 1923
But the standard of play quickly improved and in 1929 Mrs Verey of Dandenong won an open croquet competition at Elsternwick. The club held joint open days and dances with Dandenong Bowling Club together with regular members' competitions at its home court. Players were grouped in different divisions according to their skill levels to keep games competitive. The club enjoyed many years of success before dosing in 2015.
Dandenong Bowling Club
133 years of bowling. A group of local men created the Dandenong Bowling Club in 1882, locating their club near Dandenong Creek to make watering the bowling greens easy! The club held its first women's tournament in 1896, although women could only become members after World War II.
Dandenong Bowling Club thrived for its first 100 years, but was dissolved in 2015 after membership declined and tree roots damaged the grounds.
Truby King Centre
'There are no babies quite so perfect as ... our babies in Dandenong.' from The Dandenong Journal, 17 March 1932
The Truby King Centre helped mothers care for their babies for over 80 years. It was one of several infant welfare centres to be named after Dr Frederic Truby King, who not only set new standards for feeding and caring for infants in the early 1900s but also greatly reduced infant mortality rates.
The Truby King Centre was so popular with Dandenong's mothers that it outgrew its first two premises. The new Dandenong Park Truby King Centre building, which opened here in 1941, was the 'most modern' Truby King Centre in Victoria according to The Dandenong Journal.
In its first year, the sisters who ran the centre welcomed over 4,000 visitors. These included families from New Guinea, Singapore and Malaya. The centre continued to evolve as Dandenong grew and became home to people of many cultures.
Although the Truby King Centre closed in 2015, maternal and child health centres continue to support Dandenong's parents and young children today.
The timeline for the centre was:
1932 - Dandenong's first Truby King Centre formally opens at Memorial Hall. It began accepting mothers and babies in December 1931.
1935 - The first Truby King Centre at Dandenong Park is opened by Her Excellency Lady Irvine.
1941 - A new, purpose-built Truby King Centre is opened at Dandenong Park by Her Excellency Lady Gowrie. The Dandenong Centre operates in the Presbyterian Sunday School for over 12 months while the new centre is being built.
1943 - Dandenong Nursery School opens in the Truby King Centre
1957 - An ante-natal centre is added to the facility
1981 - A free dental clinic for pre-schoolers begins at the centre.
1983 - Westernport Regional Early Intervention Service Day Training Centre and the Department of Mental Health's pre-school service operate at the site.
2015 - The Dandenong Nursery School closes. Staff and students relocate to Dandenong Primary School.
2016 - The building is demolished to make way for open space in Dandenong Park.
A Child's Life in 1944
Mrs Courtney Oldmeadow was Dandenong Nursery School's first Guidance Officer. A qualified kindergarten teacher, she had a clear but 'experimental' routine for the children.
See if you can spot how kindergartens and child care centres have changed since the 1940s:
ARRIVAL
At the start of the day, a Sister 'medically examined' each child for signs of ill health. Children then put their pieces of fruit on a plate. Each plate had a different pattern to help children tell their pieces of fruit apart. Then, it was time to play!
ACTIVITIES
The Nursery School had creative indoor activities including picture and story sessions. An outdoor playground and sandpit entertained children and helped them 'become aware of nature; ways of transport and the ways of various animals'.
EXCURSIONS
Parents helped out during excursions, which provided opportunities for children to develop conversational skills and learn about traffic rules and group co-operation.
GOING TO THE TOILET
Toilet routines were 'not anything to make a fuss about - but just something everyone does'. Children used their own towels to dry their hands.
REST
Children rested for 10-15 minutes every day. In Mrs Oldmeadow's words, they 'very early need to learn the art of being able to completely relax; as many adults lack this necessary art'.
GOING HOME
Parents or an older brother or sister collected the children at 12 noon.
The Original Entry Gates
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At the northern end of the park is the original entry point. Two entry gates, made of timber and connected to a picket fence and tall granite posts, were installed here in 1876. Surrounded by an impressive display of trees, flowers and rockeries, the gates guarded the park for almost 100 years. They were demolished in the 1950s.
There are hollow steel posts and pickets etched into concrete. These commemorate where Dandenong Park's original fence and gate posts once stood.
Rotary Water Wheel
The Dandenong Rotary Club formed on 29 March 1935. One of its first activities was to build a children's playground at Dandenong Park in 1934-35. Thirty years Later, Rotary donated a fountain to the park. However, when the fountain began to suffer mechanical faults, the club replaced it with the Water Wheel to celebrate 50 years of service to the community. The City of Greater Dandenong has refurbished the Rotary Water Wheel as part of the Dandenong Park revitalisation project.
History of Dandenong Park
On 21 December 1921, the Argus newspaper said the following about the park 'A recreation park of 29 acres, which is intersected by the Dandenong Creek, is provided with a bowling green (electrically lit), tennis courts, croquet lawns, and swimming baths, while facilities are afforded the many picnickers who frequent it during the summer months'
In 1836, squatter Joseph Hawdon was the first European settler to occupy land in the Dandenong area. Only a year later, the lease to his property was taken over by Alfred Langhorne. But the land surrounding Dandenong Creek, which regularly flooded, proved unsuitable for farming, housing or raising livestock. Instead, the natural beauty of the creek and its surrounding floodplain made it the perfect place for a park.
Dandenong Park has witnessed many spectacular sporting matches. In 1895, Melburnians flocked to see the Dandenong Cricket Team play against the touring English side 'Stoddart's Eleven'.
Women's cricket team The Dandenong Sunflowers formed in 1904 as part of the Victorian Ladies' Cricket Association. From their home ground at Dandenong Park, they competed against teams including the Brighton Boomerangs and the Coldstreams from East Melbourne. The Dandenong Sunflowers were never beaten. The Sunflowers wore 'cream blouses, dark blue skirts, and Panama hats with a sunflower in front, and an orange belt and tie' as their uniform.
When Europeans arrived in Dandenong in the 1830s, the banks of Dandenong Creek were blanketed in 'wild raspberries, wild black currants, native laurels, myrtles, silver wattles and other pretty shrubs'. Birds, marsupials, and fish all called the area home.
Dandenong Creek flooded regularly and could instantly transform from a tranquil stream into a raging torrent. The floods of 1863, 1880, 1891 and 1934 were especially severe. In 1880, several residents needed to be rescued. These included 76-year-old Thomas Jones, who tragically drowned. During the 1960s, the Dandenong Valley Authority installed a concrete channel with raised banks on either side of Dandenong Creek to prevent flooding.
Local man Mr W Fox grew gardens at Dandenong Park during the 1860s and his work became beloved by people far and wide. When a public holiday was declared for the day Mr Fox was due to plant pine trees at Dandenong Park, the whole community turned out to help him. This marked the start of a love affair between the people of Dandenong and their park. Dandenong Park was officially reserved for public use in 1872.
Over time, local needs have changed. So, too, has the park. There was once a lake on the site of the old Croquet Club and many local children learned to swim in Dandenong Creek.
Stan Prior Soundshell
Stan Prior was a beloved Dandenong musician. Born in 1890, he displayed a passion for music from an early age. This included performing with the South Melbourne Band when he was only 14 years old. Stan later played music in various Belgian venues while serving in the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade during World War I.
Stan moved to Dandenong with his wife and three sons in the 1940s. A talented musician, he not only played the baritone horn, cornet, cello and fiddle but also performed regularly for the Dandenong Orchestra and the City of Greater Dandenong Band. In the 1940s, Stan joined the successful singing quartet 'The Mosquitoes' and sang for local radio.
Stan Prior was proclaimed a Life Member of the City of Greater Dandenong Band in 1975 and awarded the Badge of Merit by the Victorian Bands League in 1978. Yet his greatest achievement was still to come. Stan made international news when he won a Guinness World Record in 1988 as Dandenong's longest-serving bandsman at the grand age of 97 years old. Stan continued to play with the City of Greater Dandenong Band until his death at the age of 102. In 1988, the City of Greater Dandenong Council named -4 the Dandenong Park Soundshelt in honour of Stan's extraordinary Legacy.
The City of Greater Dandenong Band formed in 1957 and rehearsed at Memorial Hall for many years. However, the band had trouble fitting all of its members and equipment into Memorial Hall and appealed to Dandenong Shire Council for a new building in January 1965. The appeal was successful and Council approved construction of the Soundshell in May that year.
Ironically, the City of Greater Dandenong Band was only allowed to use the Soundshell one night per week. Disgruntled but determined, the band negotiated with Dandenong Shire Council and was given more frequent access to the venue. Today, the City of Greater Dandenong Band not only has annual cabaret shows, but also performs at regional, state and national brass band competitions and local events such as Carols by Candlelight and ANZAC Day services.
In 1966, architects Alsop & Duncan P/L designed the Stan Prior Soundshell. Made of concrete, brick and steel, it featured an impressive cantilevered canopy that covered the band playing beneath it and invited the audience to be part of the performance. The tiered steps of the stage were perfect for a large band.
The Soundshell has strong historical and social significance to the local community. Sadly, it was declared structurally unsound in 2016 because it did not comply with building codes. After years of serving the Dandenong community, the Soundshell was demolished as part of the Dandenong Park revitalisation project. The new Stan Prior Stage is a flexible performance space that sets the scene for a whole new era of musical performances in Dandenong.
Although the City of Greater Dandenong Band emerged on the music scene in the 1950s, Dandenong has a proud history of bands that stretches back over 130 years. The Dandenong Brass Band was one of the city's earliest bands. Formed in 1885, it entertained crowds at sporting matches and agricultural shows and even performed on Dandenong's main street in 1889.
Dandenong Drill Hall
Dandenong's Drill Hall was a place of hopes and fears - The proposal to build a Drill Hall in Dandenong was first raised in October 1912 when Secretary for Defence, Commander S.A. Pethebridge, asked all Councils for their cooperation in securing suitable sites for drill halls to be built for training the Citizen Military Forces. At that time in Dandenong, more than 150 men were involved in the compulsory part-time military training.
On 27 May 1915, Victorian Minister of Lands, the Honourable Mr Lawson, introduced a Land Bill to transfer a parcel of Dandenong Park from the State to the Commonwealth for a fee of 50 pounds for the purpose of building a Drill Hall. The motion was passed and building of the drill hall began the following month. It was completed in June 1916.
The 45th Infantry Battalion (citizen force) senior cadets set up a new headquarters in Dandenong with Lieutenant W. P. Heslop and Sergeant A. W. Bartels as platoon commanders.
Over time, as news of the battlefield heroes and horrors reached home, the Dandenong community rallied to raise funds to send comforts to those on the frontline. The Drill Hall became a central point for carrying out this civic duty in the form of fundraising carnivals, patriotic balls and a state school fair. These included the Dandenong Red Cross Carnival in June 1917; the Dandenong Plain, Fancy and Poster Patriotic Ball in October 1917 and the State School Patriotic Concert in May 1918.
When peace was finally declared in 1918, the Drill Hall was filled with 1600 people welcoming home their soldier sons, brothers, fathers and neighbours at a grand ball organised by the Dandenong Patriotic League. The Drill Hall continued to be used for Citizen Military Forces training after the Great War and for during the 1939-45 war. Greater Dandenong Council purchased the ageing building from the Defence Department in 2004 and returned the land to public open space in 2007.
Timber Cutters
Timber cutting was one of Dandenong's first local industries. River Red Gums were some of the 'plentiful supply' of trees that attracted timber cutters, or sawyers, to the area from the early 1850s onwards.
Many of these timber workers were unsuccessful gold miners, who found that greater riches lay in splitting trees than on the Victorian goldfields. Aboriginal men were also employed as sawyers, although they received payment only in food or tools.
Saw mills had been established in Dandenong by the 1850s. Historians believe that one was located on the site of the Dandenong Ham and Bacon Factory and another on the site of the cricket ground here in Dandenong Park. Other businesses, such as the Saw Mills Hotel, soon followed.
Building Melbourne - River Red Gum is a long-lasting and water resistant timber. For this reason, it was highly prized for use in Melbourne's wharves and for building foundations, road blocks, bridges and railway sleepers. Many footpaths around Melbourne were paved with red gum blocks from Dandenong in the late 19th century.
River Red Gum Stump
This impressive stump which stands in the park comes from River Red Gum about 400 years old (Eucalyptus camaldulensis). Imagine the changes the tree witnessed during its life.
The gum tree, which originally stood on the corner of Hammond Road, Dandenong, was a local landmark. Its once-prominent location suggests the tree may have held special significance to the Indigenous people of the area.
The Boon Wurrung people are the Traditional Owners of this land. To the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation, River Red Gum is known as beal and is a treasured resource for both practical and spiritual purposes.
The Kulin people use the bark of the River Red Gums to make tools, ceremonial objects and other resources. The resin of beal can be used as an adhesive. People also used River Red Gums to make canoes during seasonal rains and to harvest food such as fish and eels from swollen waterways during seasonal cycles.
River Red Gum also carries spiritual significance for Kulin people, since they are often markers for areas, ceremonies and rituals.
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Location
174 Lonsdale Street, Dandenong 3175 Map
