Historical information

The H.V. McKay Memorial Gardens began in 1909 as the “Sunshine Gardens,” created by H.V. McKay for his factory workers, and today they survive as Australia’s oldest intact industrial garden.
The gardens were designed by Francis Arthur Horsfall, assistant city engineer at Ballarat with the first curator being Samuel Gadsby Thompson.
The purposed of the gardens was for a place of rest, recreation, and civic pride, an early Australian expression of the Garden Suburb movement, linking industrial welfare with urban beautification.
The gardens featured tennis courts and pavilion, bowling green and club rooms Conservatory, rotunda, and curated flower displays.

Physical description

DVD

DVD has been digitised

Inscriptions & markings

H.V. Gardens Centenary 29/11/2009