Arthur has lived in the area all his life. He grew up in Ross Street, Gladesville, near the Parramatta River, the son of the first postmaster in the area. His working life was spent at Weil’s Hardware on Victoria Road. As a young man he was given two important pieces of advice: never pay rent, and never owe money. Consequently he saved up one hundred pounds and purchased a building block on a new subdivision on Park Road in 1938.  After getting married Arthur and his bride moved into their new house overlooking the reserve where he still lives with his daughter, Rae.

Arthur was able to throw some interesting light on the reserve and its past incarnations. Boronia Park was originally the eastern extremity of the Field of Mars Common, which stretched as far as what is now Marsfield. From soon after the inception of the colony, this area was used for farming, grazing and wood collecting by the Sydney settlers. It was also the scene of other more nefarious activities, such as sly grog running, being well away from the public gaze. Not illegal but with a severe impact on the native flora was flower harvesting. There are early records of barges laden with Christmas bush and Christmas bells being towed back to Sydney each December. (These species are now quite rare in Boronia Park). Below Tipperary Falls a tannery was located and the fertile flat land was used for vegetable farming. The produce from this and from far afield would be carted down Princes Street to the wharf and loaded onto craft for the trip to the Sydney markets. Princes Street was the most used thoroughfare in the Hunters Hill district in the early 19th century.

Probably in order for the Government to better control the area, Boronia Park was declared a Public Park in 1887 “for the purpose of public recreation, convenience, health, or enjoyment” as specified in the Public Parks act of 1884. Trustees were appointed to oversee its management. ( NSW Government Gazette, Friday 16 December, 1887.)

This did not stop the reserve being used for all manner of activities that did not fall within the specified purposes. Council made use of it for storage depots and for garbage and nightsoil disposal. Its nightsoil contractor Don Finlay had a large area in the centre of the park for keeping his horses and equipment, now mistakenly referred as “Murphy’s Paddock”. This area is still so compacted and contaminated that nothing will grow there except stubby grass. The area below the end of High Street was used for nightsoil disposal. Further down was the dunny pan station. Here the empty pans would be rinsed with high pressure steam and then painted with molten pitch. The remains of a steam boiler can still be seen covered with blackberry and other weeds. After the sewer line was put through in 1935 the pans would be tipped directly into it.

For many decades the area adjacent to Ryde Road made a convenient rubbish tip, now converted into the three ovals. Many of the local children, including Arthur’s daughter Rae, kept ponies and rode them in Boronia Park. Horses were still adjisted there as recently as the early 1990’s, and the old horse watering trough still stands at the corner of Park Road and Princes Street.

Arthur can remember the reserve being in a terrible state. It was covered with kunzea scrub and blackberry and criss- crossed with tracks, with very little tree cover (see map below). He dates the start of the park’s improvement from the days when Roy Stuckey took over as Town Clerk, and put a stop to many of the depradations. The Friends of Boronia Park was set up in the 80’s, and has been working continuously ever since, now under the leadership of Rae Mashford. Much of the original bushland has regrown, tracks have been covered over, and lots of the weeds have been eradicated. Wetlands have been installed to control weed infestations and pollution down the drainage lines, and the pond below Tipperary Falls has been dredged.

Princes Street has been closed to public vehicles below the Park Road intersection, and the reserve, apart from the high- usage oval area, has been given over to passive recreation and conservation and is a popular destination for walkers with and without dogs. The Great North Walk traverses the reserve and many people access it by walking down Princes Street to the waterfront. It would seem retrograde to re- open Princes Street and allow high-impact use for a small interest group when the park has come so far. As Arthur pointed out to us it is probably outside the uses prescribed under the Parks act of 1884. However as he said, “there’s always some reason why people want to take over parts of the park”.

Our thanks to Arthur for an entertaining and informative interview, and we are looking forward to seeing his published book and learning a great deal more about Boronia Park.

An old aerial photograph of Boronia Park with the location of some historic features marked