3.1 The Public Buildings

Parks

The government reserve on the heights above Frankston's commercial heart was also a site for parks and schemes to beautify the suburb. Not all of these were successful. A site for a public park was first reserved in 1881. Some of this land was used by the local primary school for horticultural education after 1906 and then in 1927 a dispute erupted over a road plan which would have divided the park.1

Residents tried to protect the open space of Frankston Park as it was then known. After the road dispute [the road was completed in 1929] residents sought to have a new and better park constructed on the remaining public space. This was to be known as Beauty Park and was created by unemployment relief works. The park was beautified with a lake and "a little island in the middle of the park and a little footbridge across."2 The park was also developed with a miniature zoo, which soon drew the ire of local animal lovers. One of the prize displays was the caged eagle and to many residents it was kept in an inhumane condition.

In 1934 animals were trapped by a flood in their cages and then the eagle was the subject of letters to the local paper, including that by "Rationalist" complaining that:-

"the inexcusable cruelty of this bird's imprisonment must stand as a monument to the callous cruelty or carelessness of those responsible and also to those who allow such defilement of the beauty of our park to continue".3

The zoo was eventually broken up but some years later nearby residents complained about the plague of rats in the park. Eventually even the island was described as "merely a rat-infested hole and a grave menace to children."4 The park continued to attract controversy when building plans from community groups were rejected. Later improvements concentrated on built structures with a children's pre-school centre and a Sound Shell.5

30 Frankston Recreation Reserve's notable stone gateway and palms in Bay Street: part of the upgrading of the area after the jamboree had yielded a grandstand in 1937.

Other parks and gardens throughout the Shire were the subject of attempts at improvement and management. Frankston chose a site for a municipal golf links in 1938 and a golf clubhouse was built near Nolan Street in 1958. In subsequent years the links were reduced in size by extensions to the Frankston Community Hospital. The golf links were eventually closed and the remaining public land set aside as a botanical reserve. This was named after a former Town Clerk, George Pentland. Baxter Reserve was a popular spot for outings in the early twentieth century. After the Second World War Baxter Reserve was used for motor racing, especially motor cycles and local residents took complaints about noise to council. The Motor Cycle Association contributed to local charities to make up for the disruption.6 At other times nearby farmers complained about foxes and rabbits infesting the reserve.7

(Victoria Park, another local reserve, was also a wild area, described in 1953 as a haven for snakes and covered in uncontrollable blackberry bushes).8 Baxter Cricket Club made their own improvements to the reserve, flattening 80 to 100 weeping willows.

Many of these parks have changed in character over the years. They suffered pressure from road works and sometimes from hastily-engineered local schemes for improvements. In recent years the City has taken a greater interest in the native flora of the peninsula. Probably the most innovative local park created after the Second World War was the Native Flora Reserve off Cranbourne Road; an early indication of a rising community concern for the conservation of native species.9

Other parks were designed as temporary sites. The Scout Jamboree site for example filled a natural amphitheatre off Kars Road and Overport Road near the banks of the Sweetwater Creek.10 After the Jamboree the memorial gates and entrances, a Malaysian Arch and Indian Gateway were re-erected in Beauty Park.11 Later Scout Corroborees were also held in Frankston.12 A different sort of public recreation site was the Old Dutch Mill a landmark leased for a time as a youth hostel and then handed over to a local progress association who attempted to turn it into a lookout and kiosk.13

The best known public space was sited near to the Mechanic's Institute and St. Paul's:- Frankston Park [distinguished from Beauty Park by the 1929 roadway]. A rough area surrounded by a hedge at the end of the nineteenth century it was reordered and turned essentially into a sports ground over the twentieth century.14 A small pavilion (dating from the 1880s) was removed in 1935.15 In 1937 a new pavilion was introduced into the park. This was the one time grandstand at the Boy Scouts Jamboree.16 The size of the grandstand and the siting of the park attracted many recreational groups; even though the Frankston cricket and football clubs used the park consistently.

The new Jamboree grandstand hosted jazz concerts, athletic meetings and works picnics. Its introduction had been awaited with some eagerness and the Standard announced the new centre with some sense of its historical importance:-

"soon the spot where it [the old pavilion stood] will be occupied by one of the large grandstands from the Jamboree grounds … perhaps sixty years hence some other scribe will write of the removal of the grandstand from Frankston Park and will recall the fact that it was placed there after the great jamboree which made the name of Frankston known even to the four corners of the world."17

When the pre-school centre and small pavilion was destroyed by fire in 1953 the grandstand assumed a new importance.18