FLEMING PARK
47-51 ALBERT STREET, and 96 VICTORIA STREET, BRUNSWICK EAST, MORELAND CITY
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Statement of Significance
The following aspects of Fleming Park are significant:
- Use of the park for a range of active and passive recreational purposes
- The boundary alignment of the park, layout of the oval and surviving paths.
- The stone wall along the southern boundary on Albert Street, the low rock edging along the Cross Street boundary, and stone walling of mixed heights along the Victoria Street boundary.
- The mature trees along the southern, Albert Street boundary and in the southern part of the park including 18 English Elm (Ulmus procera), one Sugar Gum (Eucalyptus cladocalyx), one Bhutan Cypress (Cupressus torulosa), and one Canary Island Date Palm (Phoenix canariensis) on northern side of the oval.
- Fleming Park Community Hall, c.1919.
- The original section of the Brunswick East Bocce Association club house.
- The Brunswick Bowling Club building, core structure (not subsequent additions, including the Moreland Lacrosse Club building at the rear).
- The original bowling green to the west of the Community Hall as shown on the 1945 aerial photograph.
- The Sir Vivian Adams Pavilion, dating from 1937.
- The older style Brunswick City Council park seats.
Fleming Park, like Methven Park and other parks in Brunswick, exemplifies a pattern of park-making in Brunswick on land with layers of previous uses; for farming, then quarrying, then a tip (land fill) before being transformed into open space in the early part of the twentieth century. (Criterion A)
With long associations with local sporting groups and local communities who use the park in many ways, Fleming Park forms part of the cultural heritage of the local community and contributes significantly to the heritage character and amenity of the local neighbourhood. (Criterion A)
Fleming Park remains as important evidence of the proactive lead of early local resident associations and the town council in the drive to create public open space for Brunswick. (Criterion A)
Fleming Park is significant as a representative example of the planning and layout of early parks in Brunswick in the early twentieth century for a mix of active and passive recreational uses. With other significant parks created in Brunswick during the same period, including Brunswick Park and Methven Park, Fleming Park retains the signature features of these early parks - playing field, space for sporting clubs, garden areas, and elm planting. (Criterion D)
Aesthetically, the mature trees that define the boundary of the park and help enclose the open recreation areas are integral features of the park's historic landscape character, which is enhanced by later phases of planting of introduced deciduous and evergreen trees and native Australian trees. Important mature trees include the large English Elms, London Plane, Sugar Gum and Canary Island Date Palm. (Criterion E)
As a well-used local community park for a range of long-standing and continuing active and passive recreational purposes, Fleming Park has potential to be significant for social and/or cultural reasons. (Criterion G)
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FLEMING PARK - Physical Description 1
Fleming Park is located on the north side of Albert Street in East Brunswick and is a wellused, mixed use local park of 2.8 hectares. It has frontages to three streets, Albert, Victoria and Cross streets, and is surrounded on three sides by residential housing and on the west side by low rise commercial properties on Cross Street.
A sporting oval is a central feature of the park. It is delineated by a single metal railing and pedestrian footpath. Two lightweight coaching shelters are located inside the railing on the southern side close to the spectator stand. Known as the Sir Vivian Adams Pavilion, the spectator stand is a timber structure, clad in fibreboard sheeting with a skillion roof supported on steel posts. Tiered wooden seating sits above rooms beneath and an older style wooden name plate hangs at the centre of the stand's roof eave. Some of the physical fabric may date from the grandstand built at Fleming Park in this location in 1937, and other elements are subsequent accretions reflecting the stand's repair and modifications over time. Currently the amenity of the spectator stand is compromised, being fenced off and in poor physical condition.
Behind the spectator stand in the south-east corner, is a new play and BBQ area (under construction at the time of this site survey).
Located at the Albert and Cross street corner of the park is the Clarrie Wohlers Senior Citizens Centre; a single-storey cream brick building with low pitched metal-clad roof. The Senior Citizens Centre may have replaced or incorporated an earlier building with a slightly smaller footprint that was in this location by 1945.
The northern part of the park along the Victoria Street boundary contains buildings and greens for specific organised recreation activities. The Brunswick Bowling Club (BBC) occupies the north-eastern section of the park on Victoria Street. It has two bowling greens surrounded by fencing and seating with a mid-twentieth century cream brick club house on the southern side of the greens. This cream brick club house has been extended on both sides and more recently at the rear, which houses a number of club rooms.
The area to the south of the BBC was until recently used as a council plant nursery and is now a large hard standing area used for car parking.
Directly east of the BBC, on Victoria Street, is the single-storey face brick and tile gable roofed Fleming Park Community Hall, dating from c.1919. It has timber Arts and Crafts-style detailing, and a symmetrical, rendered masonry facade and parapet addresses the Victoria Street frontage. The west facing verandah, contained beneath the roof plane, forms the boundary of the main bowling green. An east facing verandah overlooks the Brunswick East Bocce Association courts. The c.1919 Community Hall appears to have been extended at the southern (park) end of the building.
East of the BBC is the Brunswick East Bocce Association club house and green. The club house, set behind the green, is a weatherboard structure with terracotta tile hip roof. A verandah on the north facade is a more recent addition.
To the east of the Bocce Association was the original tennis court. The tennis court has been replaced by an area for passive recreation, which consists of an expanse of lawn shaded by mainly native tree specimen planting dating from the 1970-80s. The main species include Lemon-Scented Gum, Spotted Gum, Ironbark and Paperbark.
Older trees planted through the twentieth century extend the length of the southern boundary zone. This planting is dominated by Elms, but also includes a Bhutan Cypress and an impressive Sugar Gum. Elsewhere in the Park, mature plantings include a Canary Island Date Palm, a London Plane and several conifers. Later planting includes individual conifers scattered through the park.
FLEMING PARK - Integrity
There have been a number of changes to the layout of the park since its inception. The oval area has been extended westwards resulting in the removal of a former path and associated tree planting. As previously stated, the removal of the tennis courts has led to the development of a more formal area with specimen plantings of predominantly native trees. The former plant nursery has closed, although this was a later addition to the park, and the bowling club has continued to develop with built additions and an extended bowling green on the Cross Street boundary. This extension resulted in removal of a number of early boundary trees as shown on the 1945 aerial photograph. The Bocce Association courts now occupy a third bowling green which replaced the original croquet lawn.
Despite the changes Fleming Park still retains the main characteristics of the original layout with surviving tree planting and continuing recreational uses first established in the early twentieth century. The more open green and treed character of the park to the Albert Street frontage and part of the Cross Street frontage and concentration of buildings and built features along the north (Victoria Street) boundary are a consistent characteristic of the park.
Heritage Study and Grading
Moreland - Keeping Brunswick's heritage: A Report on the Review of the Brunswick Conservation Study
Author: Context Pty Ltd
Year: 1990
Grading: LocalMoreland - Moreland Heritage Gaps Study 2017
Author: Context Pty Ltd
Year: 2017
Grading: Local
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RESIDENCEVictorian Heritage Register H1219
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NORTHCOTE 12Victorian Heritage Inventory
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WALES QUARRY BRUNSWICK 1Victorian Heritage Inventory
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"1890"Yarra City
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"AMF Officers" ShedMoorabool Shire
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"AQUA PROFONDA" SIGN, FITZROY POOLVictorian Heritage Register H1687
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