Queens Park, Ipswich 4.33

Queens Park is a heritage-listed botanic garden and park at Milford Street, Ipswich, City of Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. It was built from to 1960s. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 27 September 2002.HistoryQueens Park, Ipswich is the central section of a reserve granted in 1858 as a botanic garden and park for public recreation.In 1842 Henry Wade set aside a "reserve for public recreation and botanic gardens" at Woodend in the first survey of Ipswich, though this was not developed. In 1855 Walter Hill was appointed Director of Brisbane Botanic Gardens and the "branch" botanic reserves at Ipswich, Toowoomba and Warwick were under his supervision. The people of Ipswich objected to the site reserved by Wade and a public meeting was held in 1856 regarding a change of site to the current area. In 1858, the proposed reserve was approved, provided that land was made available for railway use. It was much larger than the current area now designated Queens Park and was bounded by Torch Street to the north, incorporating a section of riverbank; Milford Street to the west, Salisbury Road to the south and Chermside Road to the east. It included two major limestone features and a spring in the southern section where Aborigines camped until the 1890s.In 1859, trustees for the park were chosen in accordance with the system also used for other Queens Parks. They were all men very prominent in Ipswich in the 19th century - John Panton, George Thorn Jnr., Patrick O'Sullivan, Frederick Forbes, Christopher Gorry, Henry Challinor, Arthur Macalister, Henry Kilner and George Faircloth. The Board of Trustees were formally appointed in 1862 and a Deed of Grant for 207 acres was recorded on 8 May 1862. In the following year they issued rules for opening hours and the protection of flora in the park by impounding grazing animals and banning the cutting of grass and trees. These regulations seem to suggest that the reserve was regarded as a town Common by the public and may have been the trigger for several petitions made between 1863 and 1872 for council control of the reserve.