Rosalind Park

Rosalind Park
View of the conservatory and gardens
Type	Public Park
Location	Bendigo, Victoria
Coordinates	36°45′25″S 144°16′44″E / 36.757°S 144.279°E / -36.757; 144.279Coordinates: 36°45′25″S 144°16′44″E / 36.757°S 144.279°E / -36.757; 144.279
Area	59 acres (24 ha)
Opened	1870
Owned by	City of Greater Bendigo

Rosalind Park is an Australian park in Bendigo, Victoria. Prior to white settlement, a grassy woodland surrounding what is now called Bendigo Creek. At that time the creek was little more than a chain of pools and billabongs. This area would have been an important source of food and water for the indigenous Dja Dja Wrung people living in dry central Victoria.

In the 1850s gold was discovered in the area, radically transforming the area that is now Rosalind Park. Bendigo was one of the richest gold mining regions in the world, with more gold found in the region from 1850 to 1900 than anywhere else in the world. At present it remains the seventh richest goldfield in the world. Puddling mills, shafts and piles of mine wastes and cast offs dominated the landscape. In 1852 the area was officially designated a Government Camp precinct, the bounds of which still roughly designate the park today. The Government Camp area comprised 66 acres and contained police barracks, gaol and lock-up, a courthouse (which is still in use), a gold office and other government buildings, offices and quarters.

In 1856 the local Gold Commissioner, Joseph Panton, first suggested that the camp should be turned into a park, but it was not until 1861 that 59 acres were formally reserved for the park and handed over to the Sandhurst Borough Council (now the City of Greater Bendigo). The first park gardener was appointed in 1870 and established the basic layout of Rosalind Park which remains to this day.

The park is effectively bounded by View Street, Pall Mall, Bridge Street, Park Road and Barnard Street, but shares some of this space with the Queen Elizabeth Oval, Bendigo Senior Secondary College, Courthouse, former Bendigo Post Office (now a tourist information centre), Camp Hill Primary School and old Bendigo Jail.

The Rosalind Park area is of historic significance as the site of one of the largest government camps in the Victorian goldfields as well as a significant example of a late nineteenth century public park. The area is of archaeological significance given its past importance in the Bendigo goldfields as well as architectural and botanic features. The cast iron conservatory within the grounds of the parks is only surviving example of a nineteenth century conservatory in a public park in Victoria.