Picnic Point, Toowoomba
| Picnic Point, Toowoomba | |
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Picnic Point Lookout, 2013
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| Location | 168 Tourist Road, Rangeville, Toowoomba, Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia |
| Coordinates | 27°34′49″S 151°59′15″E / 27.5802°S 151.9875°ECoordinates: 27°34′49″S 151°59′15″E / 27.5802°S 151.9875°E |
| Official name: Picnic Point and adjacent Parkland | |
| Type | state heritage (built, landscape) |
| Designated | 13 November 2008 |
| Reference no. | 601205 |
| Significant period | 1880s onwards |
 Location of Picnic Point, Toowoomba in Queensland
Location of Picnic Point, Toowoomba in Queensland
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Picnic Point is a heritage-listed park at 168 Tourist Road, Rangeville, Toowoomba, Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 13 November 2008.
Picnic Point and its adjacent parkland is today a reserve of approximately 65 hectares (160 acres) situated on the crest of a prominent bluff along the top of the Great Dividing Range at Toowoomba. The site was selected by William Henry Groom, the first Lord Mayor of Toowoomba in consultation with WC Hume, the then Commissioner of Crown Lands on the Darling Downs as being "one of great beauty, easy of access, commanded splendid views of the deep gorges of the Main Range and the hills below it, and was the recreational resort of the people for a days outing."
The word "picnic" has entered the English language via the French term picque-nique, a term which, by the early 1700s, had come to describe "an informal communal meal to which guests brought their own food, or paid for themselves at a restaurant, but which increasingly took place outdoors". Picnicking became a popular leisure activity in Britain by the 1800s and British immigrants to Australia found that the mild climate, seemingly "boundless" opportunities for the provision of public open space, particularly in attractive settings, offered many opportunities to continue with this tradition. Picnics at public parklands or reserves offered people the opportunity to enjoy the company of large gatherings of families and friends in congenial surroundings, or for particular interest groups to socialize. It is of note that from the time the first portion of 38 acres (15 hectares) of this reserve was set aside in 1886 that the name given to the area was Picnic Point.
In 1888 the citizens of Toowoomba and surrounding districts petitioned Henry Jordan, the Minister of Lands to convey in perpetuity to the Municipal Council in Trust for the inhabitants of Toowoomba and district and to be devoted solely for the purpose of a public park, approximately 2000 acres of Main Range escarpment lands, at the time designated within the Toowoomba Town Common. The reserve at Picnic Point and the escarpment area below it were included in the lands identified by this petition. The petitioners described the land as follows, "...a piece of land replete with beauty, and full of picturesque effects, such as, are most charming to the eye, and gratifying to the lover of landscape variety, - grassy slopes and rugged mountain gullies, clothed with verdant scrubs, and down which flow rippling streams from natural springs.
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