Logan Park is a sporting venue in the city of

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

. It lies on land reclaimed from the former Lake Logan.

Features

The park contains both Football and rugby grass and artificial pitches, known as both Dunedin Artificial Turf and Logan Park Turf, two artificial

hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

turfs,

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), thoug ...

green, and

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball c ...

courts, and part of the park is now occupied by two stadia, the University Oval stadium, home of the University of Otago Rugby Football Club and Otago Cricket, and the

Caledonian Ground The Caledonian Ground, often simply known as "The Caley", is a major sports venue in the New Zealand city of Dunedin. It is primarily used for football (soccer) and athletics, and has a capacity of 7,500. Location The Caledonian Ground is curren ...

, which is an athletics venue and also the city's main soccer venue. A new multi-purpose stadium, the

Forsyth Barr Stadium at University Plaza The Forsyth Barr Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Dunedin, New Zealand. At various stages of development it was also known as Dunedin Stadium or Awatea Street Stadium, or its non-commercial official name during the 2011 Rugby World Cup an ...

, is located close to the southern end of the park. The park is located at the northeastern extremity of the

Water of Leith The Water of Leith (Scottish Gaelic: ''Uisge Lìte'') is the main river flowing near central Edinburgh, Scotland, and flows into the port of Leith where it flows into the sea via the Firth of Forth. Name The name ''Leith'' may be of Britt ...

's plain. The northern and eastern sides of the park are bounded by forested hills, part of the foot of Signal Hill. A small tributary of the Leith, the Opoho Creek, flows along Logan Park's eastern perimeter, between the park and Logan Point quarry and

Logan Park High School Logan Park High School is a high school founded in 1974 in Dunedin, New Zealand. It has a roll of around 700 students with a teaching staff of about 50, with some 18 further auxiliary and administrative staff. History The school was built on ...

. The

Otago Polytechnic Otago Polytechnic was a public New Zealand tertiary education institute, centred in Dunedin with additional campuses in Cromwell and Auckland. Otago Polytechnic provided career-focused education and training, offering a range of New Zealand accr ...

campus lies alongside to the western boundary of the park, and the southern edge is bordered by the

University of Otago , image_name = University of Otago Registry Building2.jpg , image_size = , caption = University clock tower , motto = la, Sapere aude , mottoeng = Dare to be wise , established = 1869; 152 years ago , type = Public research collegiate u ...

College of Education In the United States and Canada, a school of education (or college of education; ed school) is a division within a university that is devoted to scholarship in the field of education, which is an interdisciplinary branch of the social sciences en ...

and the

Forsyth Barr Stadium The Forsyth Barr Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Dunedin, New Zealand. At various stages of development it was also known as Dunedin Stadium or Awatea Street Stadium, or its non-commercial official name during the 2011 Rugby World Cup an ...

History

Lake Logan was reclaimed in the early 20th century. Originally an inlet of the

Otago Harbour Otago Harbour is the natural harbour of Dunedin, New Zealand, consisting of a long, much-indented stretch of generally navigable water separating the Otago Peninsula from the mainland. They join at its southwest end, from the harbour mouth. ...

called Pelichet Bay, it frequently silted up, especially after a

causeway A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet ...

was built to allow for the

South Island Main Trunk Railway The Main North Line between Picton and Christchurch and the Main South Line between Lyttelton and Invercargill, running down the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand, are sometimes together referred to collectively as the South I ...

between Dunedin and

Port Chalmers Port Chalmers is a town serving as the main port of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. Port Chalmers lies ten kilometres inside Otago Harbour, some 15 kilometres northeast of Dunedin's city centre. History Early Māori settlement The orig ...

. Reclamation began in 1913 and continued after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, at which time the area was linked with the central city by a tree-lined boulevard, Anzac Avenue, leading straight to Anzac Square and the Dunedin Railway Station. The reclaimed land was turned into a park and was used as the site of the

1925 New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition The New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition was a world's fair held in Dunedin, New Zealand from 17 November 1925 until 1 May 1926, which celebrated that country and the South Seas. It was the third such exhibition held in Dunedin, wi ...

. For many years the

Dunedin Public Art Gallery The Dunedin Public Art Gallery holds the main public art collection of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. Located in The Octagon in the heart of the city, it is close to the city's public library, Dunedin Town Hall, and other facilities such as ...

stood in one of the buildings constructed for that exhibition. This building and the Otago Lawn Tennis Association building (formerly the aquarium) are all that remains of the exhibition buildings. Shortly after the exhibition the reclaimed land was converted into playing fields and now goes by the name of Logan Park. The park's location close to the city's two tertiary institutions (Otago Polytechnic and the

— especially its Dunedin College of Education) and one of the city's larger high schools makes it an important and heavily used venue. The building of the

led to traffic being diverted from Anzac Avenue (by that time part of SH 88. The main vehicular access to Logan Park is from the streets surrounding the Polytechnic and College of Education, and via a feeder road from the realigned SH 88, which skirts the harbour side of the Forsyth Barr Stadium on its path from Dunedin to

. The new artificial field known as 'Logan Park Turf', was officially opened by Columbia international

Juan Pablo Ángel Juan Pablo Ángel Arango (born 24 October 1975) is a Colombian former footballer who last played as a striker for Atlético Nacional in Categoría Primera A. He began his career at Nacional, whom he helped to win the championship in 1994, an ...

in November 2019.

References

*Herd, J. & Griffiths, G. J. (1980). ''Discovering Dunedin''. Dunedin: John McIndoe.
History of Dunedin City Council
{{coord, -45.864, 170.525, display=title 1920 establishments in New Zealand Sports venues in Dunedin World's fair sites in New Zealand Former lakes of Oceania Cricket grounds in New Zealand Parks in Dunedin Association football venues in New Zealand

Features

History

See also

References