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

History

Inhabited by the Kaurna people 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 counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

, England, in 1800 and arrived in South Australia in 1849. Pile's Paddock was popular as a

picnic A picnic is a meal taken outdoors ( ''al fresco'') as part of an excursion, especially in scenic surroundings, such as a park, lakeside, or other place affording an interesting view, or else in conjunction with a public event such as preceding ...

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 Kensington Gardens, once the private gardens of Kensington Palace, are among the Royal Parks of London. The gardens are shared by the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and sit immediately to the west of Hyd ...

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 trams, part of the network of

Adelaide trams Until 1958, trams formed a network spanning most of Adelaide, with a history dating back to 1878. Adelaide ran horse trams from 1878 to 1914 and electric trams from 1909, but has primarily relied on buses for public transport since the mid-20t ...

and on the first line of the network to be electrified in 1909, was built as an extension to the

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensington Garden ...

Line, which had terminated The Parade/Gurrs Road intersection. The extension was built to serve the recently created reserve. An annual

sweet-pea The sweet pea, ''Lathyrus odoratus'', is a flowering plant in the genus ''Lathyrus'' in the family Fabaceae (legumes), native to Sicily, southern Italy and the Aegean Islands. It is an annual climbing plant, growing to a height of , where suita ...

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 Gustave Adrian "Gus" Barnes (9 May 1877 – 14 March 1921) was an English violinist, painter and sculptor with a significant career in South Australia, notably as curator at the Art Gallery. Biography Barnes was born in Islington, Middlesex, t ...

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 A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-gover ...

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