This is a concept website · Enquire about this domain

Inner NorthCanberra · ACT

Guide 5 of 6 · Garden City precincts

Where Garden City still stands

The ACT Heritage Register’s Garden City precincts include Alt Crescent, Braddon, Corroboree Park, Reid and Wakefield Gardens.

How to read the plan

Stop
a light rail stop on the avenue, in order from the City
Nature reserve
a reserve at the district's edge, with its height
City Centre
the City, as the district policy names it
Lake Burley Griffin: beyond the City. The extension from Alinga Street to Commonwealth Park is to improve the link between the city and the lake LAKE BURLEY GRIFFIN Black Mountain Nature Reserve: 434 hectares on the northern side of Lake Burley Griffin, its hill 812 metres above sea level under a 195-metre tower Black Mountain Nature Reserve · 812 m on the northern side of Lake Burley Griffin Mount Ainslie Nature Reserve: 637 hectares adjoining Mount Majura Nature Reserve; together they overlook the city of Canberra from its north-east Mount Ainslie Nature Reserve · 842 m overlooking the city from its north-east Mount Majura Nature Reserve: 502 hectares adjoining Mount Ainslie Nature Reserve to the south, its hill 888 metres above sea level, the highest in northern Canberra Mount Majura Nature Reserve · 888 m adjoining Mount Ainslie to the south Northbourne Avenue: the district policy’s own area heading names Braddon, Dickson, Downer, Lyneham, O’Connor and Turner as the Northbourne Avenue area Federal Highway: Transport Canberra’s notice puts the replacement bus stop for Phillip Avenue on the Federal Highway, after Phillip Avenue. Federal Highway Swinden Street: the sixth stop from the City, as Transport Canberra lists it SWINDEN STREET Dickson Interchange: the fifth stop from the City, as Transport Canberra lists it DICKSON INTERCHANGE Macarthur Avenue: the fourth stop from the City, as Transport Canberra lists it MACARTHUR AVENUE Ipima Street: the third stop from the City, as Transport Canberra lists it IPIMA STREET Elouera Street: the second stop from the City, as Transport Canberra lists it ELOUERA STREET Alinga Street: the first stop from the City, as Transport Canberra lists it ALINGA STREET City Centre: the district policy identifies the City Centre Entertainment Precinct; light rail runs from the city to Gungahlin via Dickson. CITY CENTRE The twelve localities, in the order the district policy lists them. Ainslie, named for James Ainslie (1787–1844). Opens the guide to the twelve localities. AINSLIE James Ainslie (1787–1844) Braddon, named for Sir Edward Braddon PC KCMG (1829–1904). Opens the guide to the twelve localities. BRADDON Sir Edward Braddon PC KCMG (1829–1904) Campbell, named for Robert Campbell (1769–1846). Opens the guide to the twelve localities. CAMPBELL Robert Campbell (1769–1846) City, named for City. Opens the guide to the twelve localities. CITY City Dickson, named for Sir James Dickson, KCMG (1832 – 1901). Opens the guide to the twelve localities. DICKSON Sir James Dickson, KCMG (1832 – 1901) Downer, named for Sir John Downer (1843 – 1915). Opens the guide to the twelve localities. DOWNER Sir John Downer (1843 – 1915) Hackett, named for Sir John Winthrop Hackett KCMG (1848 – 1916). Opens the guide to the twelve localities. HACKETT Sir John Winthrop Hackett KCMG (1848 – 1916) Lyneham, named for Sir William Lyne, KCMG (1844 – 1913). Opens the guide to the twelve localities. LYNEHAM Sir William Lyne, KCMG (1844 – 1913) O’Connor, named for Richard Edward O'Connor, QC (1851 – 1912). Opens the guide to the twelve localities. O’CONNOR Richard Edward O'Connor, QC (1851 – 1912) Reid, named for Right Honourable Sir George Reid, PC GCB GCMG KC (1845 – 1918). Opens the guide to the twelve localities. REID Right Honourable Sir George Reid, PC GCB GCMG KC (1845 – 1918) Turner, named for Rt Hon Sir George Turner PC KCMG (1851 – 1916). Opens the guide to the twelve localities. TURNER Rt Hon Sir George Turner PC KCMG (1851 – 1916) Watson, named for Hon John Christian Watson (1867 – 1941). Opens the guide to the twelve localities. WATSON Hon John Christian Watson (1867 – 1941) Lake Burley Griffin: beyond the City. The extension from Alinga Street to Commonwealth Park is to improve the link between the city and the lake LAKE BURLEY GRIFFIN Northbourne Avenue: the district policy’s own area heading names Braddon, Dickson, Downer, Lyneham, O’Connor and Turner as the Northbourne Avenue area Federal Highway: Transport Canberra’s notice puts the replacement bus stop for Phillip Avenue on the Federal Highway, after Phillip Avenue. Federal Highway Alinga Street: the first stop from the City, as Transport Canberra lists it Alinga Street Elouera Street: the second stop from the City, as Transport Canberra lists it Elouera Street Ipima Street: the third stop from the City, as Transport Canberra lists it Ipima Street Macarthur Avenue: the fourth stop from the City, as Transport Canberra lists it Macarthur Avenue Dickson Interchange: the fifth stop from the City, as Transport Canberra lists it Dickson Interchange Swinden Street: the sixth stop from the City, as Transport Canberra lists it Swinden Street City Centre: the district policy identifies the City Centre Entertainment Precinct; light rail runs from the city to Gungahlin via Dickson. City Centre
North is to the rightup. The avenue and its stops are set in Transport Canberra’s order, the City at the line’s southern end and the lake beyond it. No locality is placed on it: the official pages linked here set none on a map, so the register below carries all twelve.

What Garden City means

The register’s statement of significance records that Garden City planning, alongside American City Beautiful ideas, underpinned Canberra’s first planning, by the Federal Capital Advisory Committee, the Federal Capital Commission and the Department of Interior between 1920 and the Second World War. Its philosophy was to create healthy working and living environments for city residents; it developed internationally through the 1900s, and many of its principles went into Walter Burley Griffin’s winning design for the new capital.

The ACT Heritage Register’s Garden City precincts are Alt Crescent, Barton, Blandfordia 5, Braddon, Corroboree Park, Forrest, Kingston/Griffith, Reid and Wakefield Gardens. Since the Second World War the precincts have been through a long process of change to suit new lifestyles, and features such as landscaped central reserves overlooked by housing, wide verges, generous blocks and front setbacks, and hedges supplied and kept by the government, have been lost or diminished.

The five precincts, and when they went up

Canberra Tracks records three heritage precincts in Ainslie, at Wakefield Gardens, Alt Crescent and Corroboree Park, all demonstrating the Garden City planning philosophy behind Canberra’s early planning.

  1. 1921-22Braddon, per the Canberra Tracks precinct page: the first stage, built for lower income public servants and workmen while the Civic centre and the capital were established.
  2. 1925-1927Corroboree Park, per its entry on the ACT Heritage Register: the first stage, built for tradesmen working on the city’s commercial and first residential areas.
  3. 1925-1929Wakefield Gardens, per its register entry: the first stage, built for lower income public servants and workmen.
  4. 1926Alt Crescent, per its register entry: the subdivision, built for members of the Federal Capital Commission and first occupied by its founding staff.
  5. 1926-27Reid, per its register entry: the majority of the precinct, built for public servants before the provisional Parliament House opened in 1927.

The Braddon subdivision was first named the Ainslie Cottages Project, before the suburb was named, and is the first expression of the Garden City idea in Canberra. The Braddon Heritage Precinct is bound by Donaldson, Currong, Batman and Elimatta streets.

What each entry protects

The Braddon housing precinct entry lists, among the features intrinsic to its significance, an early C20th 'Garden City' planned subdivision including: a road pattern – a symmetrical arrangement of streets around two internal reserves.

The five precincts, and what each entry to the ACT Heritage Register protects
PrecinctSuburbWhat the entry protects
Alt CrescentAinsliethe curvilinear street pattern, which appears to derive from Walter Burley Griffin’s original plan for Canberra
BraddonBraddonthe only realised example of Walter Burley Griffin’s planning intentions for Canberra’s built residential environment
Corroboree ParkAinsliea reported corroboree ground, from which the precinct and its central reserve take their name
ReidReidthe public domain planting directed by Thomas Charles Weston, Canberra’s first Superintendent of Parks and Gardens
Wakefield GardensAinsliea 1937 bus shelter, one of seven non-standard shelters the Department of the Capital Territory chose to keep in 1981 for their historical value

The houses they built

The precincts hold a mix of interwar styles: Arts and Crafts, Federation, Interwar Californian Bungalow and Interwar Georgian Revival, and they show the period’s drift towards subtler, more minimal decoration, the step before Modernism. The same floor plans were varied with alternate exterior elevations and mirror reversals, and the designers returned to recessed porches and to chimneys set centrally on a gable facade.

Blocks and dwellings in each precinct are of comparable size, to house government employees of a similar class, and the houses repeat a limited number of designs. The large rear gardens were meant to give residents room to grow fruit and vegetables, at a time of critical shortages of fresh produce. The Braddon entry records that, with little private-sector interest or capacity, the government built most of Canberra’s new housing between 1920 and 1940.

The Alt Crescent entry records that Number 8 Alt Crescent is the only intact example of a Federal Capital Commission design Type 5 house left in the ACT. Canberra Tracks gives the Beaufort House in Ainslie as a rare example of a prefabricated steel house built for mass production. The Wakefield Gardens entry says the Beaufort House there was designed for the Department of Aircraft Production, an example of war industry turned to the housing shortage after the war, and that production of prefabricated steel houses was abandoned in 1948 for lack of steel.

Who the precincts were built for

Sorting suburbs and precincts into separate social classes was a departure from the Garden City idea of mixing the classes together. Canberra Tracks records that the social planning of the 1920s put senior public servants in the south, their middle range in inner suburbs such as Reid, and working classes in enclaves further out.

The Reid precinct page says Reid, named after the fourth Prime Minister, is Canberra’s oldest continuously inhabited residential suburb, and was laid out with detached houses on large blocks for the middle range of public servants. The Alt Crescent entry says the precinct was designed for members of the Federal Capital Commission, the body responsible for the beginnings of the city so that the provisional Parliament House could open in 1927.

The precinct page records that officials thought the cheaper timber cottages belonged out of sight, that the architects gave them flair anyway, and that the people who lived in them were proud of their weatherboards. The Corroboree Park entry records that Ainslie Hall, an early meeting place in Canberra, was erected in 1927, and that the school building beside it, from the 1920s, was moved to the park from Russell. The same entry gives the Ainslie Tennis Club pavilion and courts, built in 1927 with voluntary labour, and the buildings on Section 12, put up in 1928 as a six-bed maternity hospital and used as homes from 1929.

Hedges, trees and Haig Park

Houses in Doonkuna Street stand behind hedges, which the precinct page calls an important part of the Garden City ideal. In Reid the landscaping was based on street plantings by Charles Weston, a new approach in urban design. The Wakefield Gardens entry records that its public domain was laid out under Thomas Charles Weston, Superintendent of Parks, Gardens and Afforestation in Canberra from 1913 to 1926, and that his use of Australian native species was unusual for the time.

A line of Italian cypresses runs down both sides of the Alt Crescent precinct. Weston’s use of native species was an innovative practice for the period.

Haig Park is a significant Canberra landscape, planted early to screen the growing suburbs of Braddon and Turner from dust-laden northwesterly winds and to beautify the city. Its entry records that it was built around 1921 to 1923 and runs for more than 1,780 metres as fourteen rows of mixed evergreen and deciduous trees, a rare example of windbreak planting on this scale, and that it remains highly intact. The same entry records that, after planning and consultation in the early 1980s, it became the first windbreak within the City to be conserved in perpetuity through a program of tree replacement, and that it went onto the Heritage Places Register on 14 September 2000.