Kensington Gardens is an eastern suburb of

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

, in the

City of Burnside The City of Burnside is a local government area in the South Australian city of Adelaide stretching from the Adelaide Parklands into the Adelaide foothills with an area of . It was founded in August 1856 as the District Council of Burnside, the ...

. It includes a large recreational park, Kensington Wama, or Kensington Gardens Reserve.

History

Inhabited by the

Kaurna people The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kaurna ...

before settlement by Europeans, the area became known as Pile's Paddock, after James Pile, who was born in the county of

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

, England, in 1800 and arrived in South Australia in 1849. Pile's Paddock was popular as a picnic ground for a long time, before part of the land was reserved as a public recreation ground in perpetuity, as originally suggested by a Mr H.J. Holden, a member of the Tramways Trust, on condition that a tramline be run to the ground. This is now the large recreational park, Kensington Wama, or Kensington Gardens Reserve, also referred to as Kensington Gardens, created around 1908–1909 and occupying . Stonyfell Creek runs through the park. The south-eastern corner and part of South Terrace were once part of a Kaurna burial ground. In 1906 the

Bank of New South Wales The Bank of New South Wales (BNSW), also known commonly as The Wales, was the first bank in Australia, being established in Sydney in 1817 and situated on Broadway. During the 19th century, the bank opened branches throughout Australia and N ...

obtained section 271 from William Pile and subdivided it in 1910, with the suburb renamed to Kensington Gardens around 1910, after Kensington Gardens in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. ont. next page A tramline for

electric tram A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

s, part of the network of Adelaide trams and on the first line of the network to be electrified in 1909, was built as an extension to the Kensington Line, which had terminated The Parade/Gurrs Road intersection. The extension was built to serve the recently created reserve. An annual sweet-pea exhibition was held in the reserve between 1910 and 1920, and in 1920, trees were felled in order to create the

bowling green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep ...

in the north-east corner. By 1923, part of the park had been laid out as a garden by a Mr A.H. Matthews of the Tramways Trust, and the name Kensington Gardens was used to refer to the suburb or the reserve. The artist and musician Gustave Barnes lived in Kensington Gardens before his death in 1921. A large project to renovate, redevelop and revegetate the reserve, including creating a wetland to accommodate the stormwater drainage, was undertaken in 2021, with $3 million in funding from the federal government and $850,000 from the

South Australian Government The Government of South Australia, also referred to as the South Australian Government, SA Government or more formally, His Majesty’s Government, is the Australian state democratic administrative authority of South Australia. It is modelled o ...

, among other sponsors. The reserve was officially reopened in January 2022. It was undertaken with extensive consultation with Kaurna

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have right ...

, whose also approved the use of its new dual name, Wama (wah-ma), meaning plain, or flat country.

References

Suburbs of Adelaide 1910 establishments in Australia {{adelaide-geo-stub