They are a marvellous combination of open space, sportsground, barbecue area, gardens complete with long-established European elm trees, neighbourhood house, skateboard bowl, tennis and basketball courts, ethnic festivals, bandstand, bowling greens and bocce links, remnants of the old Melbourne rail loop, gracious living, living on the poverty line and a magnificent grandstand dating from its days as the home of the mighty Royboys. And gazing down it all is an invisible Queen Victoria in her rotunda - after all she had granted the land. The rotunda is still there but the 1905 wooden statue of Her (very) Highness was swiped some time ago.......

For the historically minded:

Queen Victoria provided the grant of land for the gardens and they were laid out in 1865 by Clement Hodgkinson. The original design incorporated an existing creek as well as ponds and billabongs. With the coming of the ill-fated outer circle rail route, a railway line and station were built in the middle of the park. Faint remains can be seen today. The railways sub-let some of the land for commercial use, including a factory producing tin cans known to the locals as "the cannery". Over time, the creek was covered over, the cannery reverted to public parkland and numbers of other changes have occurred.