Melbourne continues to burst into eruptions of street rockeries, which Carlo Catani, Victorian Public Works engineer, once described in his mellifluous Anglo-Italian as “the stone age of gardening.” Hardly a suburban street nowadays but is transformed into the semblance of a macadamised waistcoat with a row of stone buttons down the middle, all in the sacred name of municipal gardening.The City Council is expectorating on its hands (purely by proxy, in order not to offend against the by-law) and is trussing up its bowyangs preparatory to forming a plantation builded upon a rock at the intersection of Molesworth, Harris,and Curzon streets, West Melbourne. Meanwhile, the designers of that portion of the city, aware that this form of art will cost £300, want to know why some of the rocks that will make the city beautiful are not being pounded into road metal to repair the dreadful highway and low ways and middle ways in the same ward. Perhaps when a councillor returning home by a late windy moonlight, has been manhandled by one of the hoodlums that are beginning to infest these rockeries o’nights, much as the Great Auk frequented the Allaloneston in Kingsley's fairy story, the City Council will be sorry spoke.
The journalist quotes Carlo's comment that rockeries are the stone-age of gardening. He made that comment at a public meeting in April 1907 where the fate of the Albert Park speedway (a trotting track at the Albert Park) was being discussed. The Speedway at Albert Park was officially opened on September 1, 1903, by the Chief Justice and Lieutenant Governor, Sir John Madden. It was established by a group of well known business and professional men and all they wanted to do was to have a place to drive a horse along, it wasn't for racing. It was to have two tracks - one a mile in length and one of six furlongs (furlong is 220 yards).
Albert Park Speedway, 1903
State Library of Victoria Image H96.28/2 http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/462028
Many locals objected to the Speedway. The Mayor of South Melbourne, Cr W.J. Mountain, who attended a meeting organised by the Albert Park Trust on the issue was against the idea as it was a public park, and should be kept so. There was a roadway already formed for those that wanted to drive through it. The 'speedway' would be a source of great danger to children. (The Age June 17, 1902) However, the Albert Park Trust did allow it to go ahead. So, no change there in the past 117 years with governments at all levels still allowing the alienation of public land into private hands.
It was a short-lived enterprise and at a report of the meeting that Carlo attended in April 1907, the Emerald Hill Record said the club under whose auspices the Albert Park Speedway was opened with such success nearly four years ago has regretfully come to the conclusion that the speedway as such has served its turn. Though the club had at the outset 103 members, and although from £1000 to £1200 was spent in preparing and fencing the track, constructing rockeries, and planting young elm trees— almost the only deciduous tree which will flourish on that soil — the enterprise has had to be abandoned. Very soon the members began to lose interest in the track, which was never really popular with the general public, because there was little for them to see. (Emerald Hill Record, April 27, 1907).
The speedway area was handed back to the Albert Park Trust, who then wanted to improve or beautify the area. One of the issues was, according to the Record, at the present the casual visitor to the open spaces of Albert Park would be justified in the impression that it is the local cow which really counts. The depasturing of cows does not improve the park in any way. Naturally, when a organisation wanted advice on the beautification of an area, they turned to Carlo for an opinion -
When questioned on the subject of the speedway, the chief engineer of the Public Works department (Mr. Catani) quickly demonstrated that there were difficulties in the way of beautifying the surrounding land, although he admitted that the speedway might be used as a drive. The presence of an existing road in the vicinity however, detracted to some extent from its value. "We might do something," he said; "the matter is open for consideration. Where ever possible we are taking down fences and planting flowers and shrubs, as in Alexandra-avenue, for our experience has shown that the public will respect their own property."
But you cannot expect a cow to learn the lesson of respect for property?
"Of course, where there are cows the fences will have to remain. Then as to the general beautification of the park, the question of funds is an important one. The soil of Albert Park is, for the most part, sand, impregnated, except just at the surface, with salt. It could not support trees unless the surface were raised two or three feet. And as it would cost £10.000 or £12,000 to treat the whole of Albert Park, that is out of the question. It is not proposed to make any expenditure on the speed-way—we have too many claims on our limited funds. It will cost £70 to paint the fence every two years."
As to maintaining the rockeries?
"Rockeries are the stone age of gardening! I certainly would like marble balustrades, with nice caps and beautiful statuary, but we haven't the money! The purists say, ' You are doing monstrous things, but between nothing and rockeries there is a great gulf fixed. And even with rockeries it must be remembered that every improvement means maintenance, so that when a certain limit was reached the cost of maintenance would absorb all the money available from improvements. Cows? The Public Works department gets £350 a year from those cows, and it can't afford to lose it! It is a barbarous thing but we want the money. We can't do much with it, but we can do a little." (Emerald Hill Record, April 27, 1907)
Albert Park Speedway
State Library of Victoria Image H96.28/1 http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/321109
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People's Playground: a history of Albert Park by Jill Barnard and Jenny Keating (Chandos Publishing, 1996)
Article - Albert Park Speedway Emerald Hill Record April 27, 1907. Read full article, here.
Article - Proposed Speedway at Albert Park The Age June 17, 1902. Read full article, here.
Article - Sporting Notions column The Bulletin August 22, 1912. Link is here.
