The Carlton Gardens is a World Heritage Site

World Heritage Site

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...

 located on the northeastern edge of the Central Business District in the suburb

Suburb

The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...

 of Carlton

Carlton, Victoria

Carlton is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 2 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Melbourne...

, in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

The 26 hectare (64 acre) site contains the Royal Exhibition Building

Royal Exhibition Building

The Royal Exhibition Building is a World Heritage Site-listed building in Melbourne, Australia, completed in 1880. It is located at 9 Nicholson Street in the Carlton Gardens, flanked by Victoria, Nicholson, Carlton and Rathdowne Streets, at the north-eastern edge of the central business district...

, Melbourne Museum

Melbourne Museum

Melbourne Museum is located in the Carlton Gardens in Melbourne, Australia, adjacent the Royal Exhibition Building.It is the largest museum in the Southern Hemisphere, and is a venue of Museum Victoria, which also operates the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks Museum.The museum has seven main...

 and Imax

IMAX

IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...

 Cinema, tennis courts and an award winning children's playground. The rectangular site is bound by Victoria Street

Victoria Street, Melbourne

Victoria Street is one of the major thoroughfares of inner Melbourne. Running east to west, Victoria Street touches the Hoddle Grid at the intersection of La Trobe Street and Spring Street, opposite the Carlton Gardens. It runs from its terminus at the intersection of Munster Terrace in North...

, Rathdowne Street, Carlton Street, and Nicholson Street

Nicholson Street, Melbourne

Nicholson Street is a street in inner Melbourne. It is named after William Nicholson, then member of the Legislative Council, and later Premier of Victoria from 1859 to 1860.-Geography:...

. From the Exhibition building the gardens gently slope down to the southwest and northeast. According to the World Heritage listing the Royal Exhibition Buildings and Carlton Gardens are "of historical, architectural, aesthetic, social and scientific (botanical) significance to the State of Victoria."

The gardens are an outstanding example of Victorian era landscape design

Landscape design

Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practised by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice landscape design bridges between landscape architecture and garden design.-Design scope:...

 with sweeping lawns and varied European and Australian tree plantings consisting of deciduous English oaks, White Poplar

White Poplar

Populus alba, commonly called abele, silver poplar, silverleaf poplar, or white poplar, is a species of poplar, most closely related to the aspens . It is native from Spain and Morocco through central Europe to central Asia...

, Plane

Platanus

Platanus is a small genus of trees native to the Northern Hemisphere. They are the sole living members of the family Platanaceae....

 trees, Elm

Elm

Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus Ulmus in the plant family Ulmaceae. The dozens of species are found in temperate and tropical-montane regions of North America and Eurasia, ranging southward into Indonesia. Elms are components of many kinds of natural forests...

s, Conifers, Cedars

Cedar wood

Cedar wood comes from several different trees that grow in different parts of the world, and may have different uses.* California incense-cedar, from Calocedrus decurrens, is the primary type of wood used for making pencils...

, Turkey Oak

Turkey Oak

Quercus cerris, the Turkey oak is an oak native to southern Europe and Asia Minor. It is the type species of Quercus sect. Cerris, a section of the genus characterised by shoot buds surrounded by soft bristles, bristle-tipped leaf lobes, and acorns that usually mature in 18...

s, Araucaria

Araucaria

Araucaria is a genus of evergreen coniferous trees in the family Araucariaceae. There are 19 extant species in the genus, with a highly disjunct distribution in New Caledonia , Norfolk Island, eastern Australia, New Guinea, Argentina, Chile, and southern Brazil.-Description:Araucaria are mainly...

s and evergreens such as Moreton Bay Fig

Moreton Bay Fig

Ficus macrophylla, commonly known as the Moreton Bay Fig, is a large evergreen banyan tree of the Moraceae family that is a native of most of the eastern coast of Australia, from the Atherton Tableland in the north to the Illawarra in New South Wales, and Lord Howe Island. Its common name is...

s, combined with flower beds of annuals and shrubs. A network of tree lined paths provide formal avenues for highlighting the fountains and architecture of the Exhibition building. This includes the grand allee of plane trees that lead to the exhibition building. Two small ornamental lakes adorn the southern section of the park. The northern section contains the Museum, tennis courts, maintenance depot and curator's cottage, and the children's playground designed as a Victorian maze.

The listing in the Victorian Heritage Register

Victorian Heritage Register

The Victorian Heritage Register lists places of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 1995 which establishes Heritage Victoria as the permit authority...

 says in part:

"The Carlton Gardens are of scientific (botanical) significance for their outstanding collection of plants, including conifers, palms, evergreen and deciduous trees, many of which have grown to an outstanding size and form. The elm avenues of Ulmus procera and Ulmus × hollandica

Ulmus × hollandica

Ulmus × hollandica Mill. , often known simply as Dutch Elm, is a natural hybrid between Wych Elm Ulmus glabra and Field Elm Ulmus minor which commonly occurs across Europe wherever the ranges of the two parent species overlap. In England, according to the field-studies of R. H...

 are significant as few examples remain world wide due to Dutch elm disease

Dutch elm disease

Dutch elm disease is a disease caused by a member of the sac fungi category, affecting elm trees which is spread by the elm bark beetle. Although believed to be originally native to Asia, the disease has been accidentally introduced into America and Europe, where it has devastated native...

. The Garden contains a rare specimen of Acmena

Acmena

Acmena is a genus of shrubs and small trees in the myrtle family Myrtaceae. They are related to guavas. The name is derived from the Greek word for "plentiful."The name was first validly published in 1828...

 ingens, only five other specimens are known, an uncommon Harpephyllum caffrum and the largest recorded in Victoria, Taxodium distichum

Taxodium distichum

Taxodium distichum is a species of conifer native to the southeastern United States.-Characteristics:...

, and outstanding specimens of Chamaecyparis funebris and Ficus macrophylla, south west of the Royal Exhibition Building."

Wildlife includes possum

Possum

A possum is any of about 70 small to medium-sized arboreal marsupial species native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi .Possums are quadrupedal diprotodont marsupials with long tails...

s, ducks and ducklings in spring, Tawny Frogmouth

Tawny Frogmouth

The Tawny Frogmouth is an Australian species of frogmouth, a type of bird found throughout the Australian mainland, Tasmania and southern New Guinea. The Tawny Frogmouth is often mistaken to be an owl...

s, Kookaburra

Kookaburra

Kookaburras are terrestrial kingfishers native to Australia and New Guinea. They are large to very large, with a total length of . The name is a loanword from Wiradjuri guuguubarra, and is onomatopoeic of its call...

s and other urban environment birds.

The gardens contain three important fountains: the Exhibition Fountain, designed for the 1880 Exhibition by sculptor Joseph Hochgurtel; the French Fountain; and the Westgarth Drinking Fountain.

History

• 1839 - Large tracts of land surrounding the original town grid of Melbourne were reserved from sale by Superintendent Charles La Trobe
  Charles La Trobe
  Charles Joseph La Trobe was the first lieutenant-governor of the colony of Victoria .-Early life:La Trobe was born in London, the son of Christian Ignatius Latrobe, a family of Huguenot origin...
  
  . Most of this land was later sold and subdivided or used for the development of various public institutions, but a number of substantial sites were permanently reserved as public parks, including the Carlton Gardens as well as Flagstaff Gardens
  Flagstaff Gardens, Melbourne
  Flagstaff Gardens is the oldest park in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, first established in 1862. In 2005 it is one of the most visited and widely used parks in the city by nearby office workers and tourists...
  
  , Fitzroy Gardens
  Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne
  The Fitzroy Gardens are 26 hectares located on the southeastern edge of the Melbourne Central Business District in East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...
  
  , Treasury Gardens
  Treasury Gardens, Melbourne
  The Treasury Gardens consist of 5.8 hectares on the south-eastern side of the Melbourne Central Business District, East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The gardens are bounded by Wellington Parade, Spring Street, Treasury Place, and by the Fitzroy Gardens across Lansdowne street to the west...
  
   and Kings Domain.
• Circa 1856 - The City of Melbourne obtained control of the Carlton Gardens, and engaged Edward La Trobe Bateman
  Edward La Trobe Bateman
  Edward La Trobe Bateman was a pre-raphaelite watercolour painter, book illuminator, draughtsman, garden designer and architect....
  
   to prepare a design for the site. The path layout and other features of the design were built although limitations on funding for maintenance etc. resulted in frequent criticism.
• 1870s - The colonial Victorian Government resumed control of the Gardens and minor changes and were made under the direction of Clement Hodgkinson
  Clement Hodgkinson
  Clement Hodgkinson was a notable English naturalist, explorer and surveyor of Australia. He was Victorian Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands and Survey from 1861 to 1874.- Exploration in New South Wales :...
  
  . The site was soon afterwards drastically redesigned for the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition by the architect Joseph Reed
  Joseph Reed (architect)
  Joseph Reed , a Cornishman by birth, was probably the most influential Victorian era architect in Melbourne, Australia. He established a practice, Reed and Barnes in Melbourne in 1852. The practice now known as Bates Smart is one of the oldest continually operating in the world.Reed's buildings...
  
  . The prominent local horticulturist William Sangster was engaged as a contractor to redevelop the gardens.
• 1880 - Exhibition Building completed for the Melbourne International Exhibition
  Melbourne International Exhibition (1880)
  The Melbourne International Exhibition was held from 1 October 1880 until 30 April 1881. It was the second international exhibition to be held in Australia , the first being held the previous year in Sydney...
  
   that year. Temporary annexes to house some of the exhibition in the northern section were demolished after the exhibition closed on 30 April 1881.
• 1888 - Melbourne Centennial Exhibition to celebrate a century of European
  European ethnic groups
  The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
  
   settlement in Australia
  Australia
  Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
  
  .
• 1891 - The curator's Lodge was completed and lived in by John Guilfoyle.
• 1901 - First Parliament of Australia
  Parliament of Australia
  The Parliament of Australia, also known as the Commonwealth Parliament or Federal Parliament, is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It is bicameral, largely modelled in the Westminster tradition, but with some influences from the United States Congress...
  
   opens in the Exhibition Building. The west annex of the Building becomes the site of the Victorian Parliament for the next 27 years.
• 1919 - buildings became an emergency hospital for influenza epidemic
  Spanish flu
  The 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus . It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin...
  
   victims
• 1928 - Perimeter fence
  Perimeter fence
  A perimeter fence is a structure that circles the perimeter of an area to prevent access. These fences are frequently made out of single vertical metal bars connected at the top and bottom with a horizontal bar. They often have spikes on the top to prevent climbing. Residential perimeter fences are...
  
   removed leaving the bluestone footings.
• Second World War the buildings were used by the RAAF.
• 1948 to 1961 - part of the complex was used as a migrant reception centre.
• 2001 - Taylor Cullity Lethlean with Mary Jeavons wins a landscape award for design and building a new children's playground of elegant yet robust resolution. The Jury described the design as a distinctive and unified design that respects its historic setting and addresses the demands of creative play for spatial and visual variety.
• July 2004 - After several years of lobbying by the Melbourne City Council, The Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens, Melbourne, were inscribed on the World Heritage List at the 28th session of the World Heritage Committee held in Suzhou, China.

The Exhibition Building is still used for exhibitions, including for the annual Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show

Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show

The Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show is held in early April each year, in Melbourne, Victoria .It is located in the World Heritage Site of the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens ....

. The Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre

Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre

The Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre is the name given to two adjacent buildings next to the Yarra River in South Wharf, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...

, opened in 1996 at Southbank

Southbank, Victoria

Southbank is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia located direct south of the Yarra River opposite Melbourne's Hoddle Grid. The northernmost area is considered part of the Central Business District and Central Activities District of the city. Its Local Government Area are the...

, provides more modern facilities and has become Melbourn'e prime location for exhibitions and conventions. It also hosts the exams for University of Melbourne in recent years.

External links

• World heritage listing for Carlton Gardens
• Melbourne City Council - Carlton Gardens
• World Heritage Listing
• Melbourne International Flower Show
• Open Space and Recreation - Merit Carlton Gardens Playground
• Heritage Register Online: Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens
• World Heritage, World Futures — Restoration of the Western Forecourt of the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne