Albert Park is a public park in central Auckland, bounded by Wellesley Street East, Princes Street, Bowen Avenue and Kitchener Street. From the entrance at the corner of Bowen Ave and Kitchener St, sealed footpaths climb steeply through native trees to the large flat area at the summit, where a formal layout of paths and flower gardens encircle a fountain.
While Albert Park is formed from sandstone, to the north-west of the park is the Albert Park Volcano, a scoria cone which erupted approximately 145,000 years ago and blanketed much of Albert Park in ash.[1] Albert Park is the location of a Maorikainga (village) known as Rangipuke, with a defended pā located at the park's northwest named Te Horotiu Pā.[2][3] Albert Park was the location of a Waiohua settlement called Mangahekea, sacked in the 1740s by Ngāti Whātua.[4]
Albert Park occupies much of the site of the Albert Barracks, one of Auckland's early European military fortifications. In the 1850s and 1860s, Albert Barracks to many soldiers including those of the 58th Regiment.[5] The barracks consisted of a number of wooden and masonry structures standing in an enclosed area surrounded by a rock fortification built of the local volcanic stone. A portion of this wall remains visible in the adjacent University of Auckland grounds, and is registered by Heritage New Zealand as a Category I historic place.[6]
The Park was set aside as a reserve in the 1870s, and developed as a park in the 1880s.[3] It originally had commanding views over the city and harbour. The view now is of modern office blocks, except where mature trees have hidden the buildings. The park contains a number of interesting specimen trees dating from the 1880s to the first World War. A caretaker's residence was provided which still stands on the eastern side of the part adjacent to Princes Street. After 1906 this Gothic-styled cottage was occupied by the City Park Superintendent Thomas Pearson, who died here in 1931. It is currently empty.
The park's layout and design have not greatly changed since 1882. Due to the park's proximity to the University of Auckland, it is a popular location for students to relax.[7]
Features
The statue of Queen Victoria
The design of the park was the result of a public competition and follows a formal layout with a main north-south axis. To the north of the axis is a bronze statue by Francis J Williamson of Queen Victoria (1897); to the south is a bandstand (James Slator 1901). Between them is a large cast iron fountain imported from Great Britain in 1881 which forms the centrepiece of the park. The fountain is distinguished by statues of dolphins ridden by cherubs blowing horns that spout water. The fountain is surmounted by Aphrodite that also has a horn spouting water.[8]
The statue of Queen Victoria was one of several similar sculptures installed by municipal authorities throughout the British Empire following the monarch's Diamond Jubilee in 1897.[7] This sculpture was cast in London and unveiled with considerable ceremony here as part of the Jubilee celebrations. The red granite pedestal is intact but the ensemble originally included a cast iron ornamental fence that has been removed.[9]
There are several other artworks and memorials in the park, including a marble Boer War memorial, and an over life-size marble statue also by F J Williamson of Sir George Grey (1904) that was relocated here from its original site outside the Auckland Town Hall. There are two Edwardian marble edifices near the band rotunda, one being Andrea Carlo Lucchesi's Love breaking the sword of hate (1900) and the other a memorial drinking fountain. Many of these memorials and artworks can be seen in the numerous images of Albert Park printed as postcards since the early 20th century.[10]
Near the flagpole and Boer War Memorial on the north side of the park are two large field guns that were once part of the defense system set up during the Russian Invasion Scare of the 1880s. Near the Princes Street exit in front of the University of Auckland clock tower is a large floral clock that was constructed in 1953 with funds donated by Robert Laidlaw, founder of the Farmers department store chain, (this was intended to commemorate the 1953 visit of Queen Elizabeth the Second). Near the Art Gallery is a large modern sculpture from the 1990s called 'Tilt'. Surprisingly an operating Victorian Gas Lamp survives in the Park, on the stairs leading from Kitchener Street.
Beneath the park are the extensive Albert Park tunnels. They were built in 1941 to be used as air raid shelters, but were decommissioned and sealed up before World War II ended. The tunnels were largely forgotten for many years and, although periodically over the last decades there are calls for them to be opened up, nothing has happened (probably purely for logistical reasons). There were large tunnel entrances at the top of Victoria Street, adjacent to the Art Gallery on Wellesley Street and from Constitution Hill. One can still be seen on Kitchener Street between Courthouse and Bacons Lane.
Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, 1st Baronet, was an Austrian-born British medallist and sculptor, best known for the "Jubilee head" of Queen Victoria on coinage, and the statue of the Duke of Wellington at Hyde Park Corner. During his career Boehm maintained a large studio in London and produced a significant volume of public works and private commissions. A speciality of Boehm's was the portrait bust; there are many examples of these in the National Portrait Gallery. He was often commissioned by the Royal Family and members of the aristocracy to make sculptures for their parks and gardens. His works were many, and he exhibited 123 of them at the Royal Academy from 1862 to his death in 1890.
Maungakiekie / One Tree Hill is a 182-metre (597 ft) volcanic peak and Tūpuna Maunga in Auckland, New Zealand. It is an important place culturally and archeologically for both Māori and Pākehā. The suburb around the base of the hill is also called One Tree Hill. It is surrounded by the suburbs of Royal Oak to the west, and clockwise, Epsom, Greenlane, Oranga, and Onehunga. The summit provides views across the Auckland area, and allows visitors to see both of Auckland's harbours.
Epsom is a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. It is located in the centre of the Auckland isthmus between Mount Eden and Greenlane, south of Newmarket, and 5 km (3.1 mi) south of the Auckland City Centre.
Freemans Bay is the name of a former bay and now inner city suburb of Auckland, in the North Island of New Zealand. The bay has been filled in to a considerable extent, with the reclamation area now totally concealing the ancient shoreline. Historically a poor and often disreputable quarter, it is now a comparatively wealthy and desirable neighbourhood known for its mix of heritage homes and more recent single-dwelling houses, as well as for its two large parks.
Mount Albert is an inner suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, which is centred on Ōwairaka / Mount Albert, a local volcanic peak which dominates the landscape. By 1911, growth in the area had increased to the point where Mount Albert was declared an independent borough, which was later absorbed into Auckland. The suburb is located 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) to the southwest of the Auckland City Centre.
Albert Square is a public square in the centre of Manchester, England. It is dominated by its largest building, the Grade I listed Manchester Town Hall, a Victorian Gothic building by Alfred Waterhouse. Other smaller buildings from the same period surround it, many of which are listed.
Parnell is a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. It is one of New Zealand's most affluent suburbs, consistently ranked within the top three wealthiest, and is often billed as Auckland's "oldest suburb" since it dates from the earliest days of the European settlement of Auckland in 1841. It is characterised by its mix of tree-lined streets with large estates; redeveloped industrial zones with Edwardian town houses and 1920s bay villas; and its hilly topography that allows for views of the port, the Waitematā Harbour, Rangitoto Island and the Auckland Domain. To its west lies the Auckland Domain, to the south Newmarket, and to the north the Ports of Auckland.
Matthew Noble was a leading British portrait sculptor. Carver of numerous monumental figures and busts including work, memorializing Victorian era royalty and statesmen, displayed in locations such as Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral and Parliament Square, London.
The Auckland Domain, also known as Pukekawa / Auckland Domain, is a large park in Auckland, New Zealand. Consisting of 75 hectares of land, Auckland Domain is the oldest park in the city. Located in the central suburb of Grafton, the parkland is the remains of the explosion crater and most of the surrounding tuff ring of the Pukekawa volcano.
Myers Park is a narrow park in central Auckland, New Zealand, running parallel to the upper part of Queen Street. It is characterised by steep, grassed slopes and canopied with a mixture of large exotic and native trees, including an alley of large palm trees.
The Auckland Central Business District (CBD), or Auckland city centre, is the geographical and economic heart of the Auckland metropolitan area. It is the area in which Auckland was established in 1840, by William Hobson on land gifted by mana whenuahapū Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. It is New Zealand's leading financial hub, and the centre of the country's economy; the GDP of the Auckland Region was NZD$139 billion in the year ending September 2023.
Point Britomart was a headland in the Waitematā Harbour, in Auckland, New Zealand. Located between Commercial Bay and Official Bay, the point was later quarried away to produce fill for land reclamation in Mechanics Bay, and almost no physical trace remains at street level in what is today an area of the Auckland CBD and the Auckland waterfront.
The Albert Park tunnels are found largely beneath Albert Park, in central Auckland, New Zealand. The tunnels were constructed as air raid shelters during the Second World War. At the conclusion of the war they were sealed to prevent vandalism or misuse by the public, and as a protection against carbon dioxide build-up or tunnel collapse.
Little Rangitoto, officially known as Maungarāhiri / Little Rangitoto, and also as Rangitoto-iti, is a volcano in the Auckland volcanic field in Remuera, New Zealand. The name Maungarāhiri refers to Rāhiri, an ancestor of Ngāpuhi, who journeyed around the North Island. In the 1700s and early 1800s, the volcano was the site of Ngāti Whātua-o-Ōrākei seasonal farms.
Ōwairaka / Mount Albert, also known as Te Ahi-kā-a-Rakataura, is a volcanic peak and Tūpuna Maunga which dominates the landscape of the Ōwairaka and Mount Albert suburbs of Auckland.
The Albert Barracks was a major British military installation that overlooked Auckland, New Zealand, from the mid-1840s to 1870, during the city's early colonial period. The perimeter wall was built between 1846 and the early 1850s, in the area now bounded by Kitchener Street, Waterloo Quadrant, Symonds Street, and Wellesley Street East, according to Colonel Thomas Rawlings Mould's 1860 map of Defensible Works round Auckland. The site is now mostly occupied by Albert Park and the University of Auckland's City Campus, and Princes Street runs through the centre of it. All that remains of the barracks structures is part of the perimeter wall, which is on the university campus.
The Albert Park Volcano was one of the volcanoes in the Auckland volcanic field in New Zealand. A small volcano that erupted approximately 145,000 years ago, the volcanic remnants were quarried during the early colonial history of Auckland between 1840 and 1869. The volcano was dwarfed by the pre-volcanic sandstone ridge of Albert Park directly to the south-east, and only recognised as volcanic by Ferdinand von Hochstetter when he visited Auckland in 1859.
Victoria Street is a street in the Auckland City Centre, New Zealand, located between the base of College Hill and Albert Park. The street is split into two sections at the junction of Queen Street, Victoria Street West and Victoria Street East.
A statue of Queen Victoria was erected at Albert Park, Auckland, in 1899. The second monument to Queen Victoria in New Zealand, the bronze statue was funded by public donations encouraged by Auckland politicians and the New Zealand Herald in celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Following applications from various British and New Zealand artists, the statue was commissioned to British portrait sculptor Francis John Williamson. It was one of nine variants of his 1887 statue erected at the Royal College of Surgeons, allegedly a favourite of the future Edward VII.
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