Hartlands Road Internal Reserve, East Ivanhoe, Victoria

This small reserve is triangular in shape and is located behind houses built on typical suburban allotments in the affluent suburb of East Ivanhoe, above the Yarra River in suburban Melbourne.  Its shape results from it being bounded by Hartlands Road, Lower Heidelberg Road and the gentle curve of Withers Street.

This area was part of the 313 acre Hartlands Estate, originally purchased by Sylvester John Brown, the father of novelist, “Rolf Boldrewood”, and only slowly succumbed to the auctioneer’s hammer in the middle of the 20th century when Burke Road North was pushed through to meet Lower Heidelberg Road.

However the frontages to Lower Heidelberg Road appear to have been sold by the 1930s as the majority of houses here date from late in this decade, while one house, in Hartland Road, is a Californian bungalow and may well date to the late 1920s.

The radial pattern of streets centred on the vegetated roundabout at East Ivanhoe, although incomplete, is distinctive.  The Heidelberg Conservation Study says that Peter Tuxen designed part of the nearby Chelsworth Estate in 1902 and it is possible that this area was also his work or that of his nephew, Saxil Tuxen, who is well known for providing internal reserves in his geometrically patterned subdivisional designs.   To the immediate north are the Mount Eagle Summit Estate (1914) and the Glenard Estate (1916) which were designed by Walter Burley Griffin for landowner and developer, Peter Keam, and which featured internal reserves.  Saxil Tuxen worked with Griffin on the Ranelagh Estate, Mt Eliza, in 1924 and there is a further connection with the Sharp family, timber merchants of South Melbourne who lived in Ivanhoe, who were connected with Tuxen’s Park Orchards subdivision.

The reserve is approached by a narrow “neck” from Hartlands Road, across which is a wire gate with the City Of Banyule logo on it, suggesting that, unlike Griffin’s Eaglemont Estates, this one is owned by the municipality.   12 houses abutting the park proper have access to it via back gates, while another four properties have access via the “neck”.  This leaves half a dozen properties in the block- on the corners- having no direct access.  The useless acute point at the north end reveals a shortcoming of the triangular design.

Fenced boundaries are universal, however, in the park proper, there are some transparent fence types and dense plantings conceal some of the boundary fences, resulting in a very pleasant ambience.  The “neck” is used for car access to abutting properties and it is possible to gain others by driving across the park, however this does not seem to be done in practice and the reserve is given over to a broad grassy sward with tree cover and native shrub beds.

The reserve is in excellent condition and is very well maintained, with much evidence of revegetation having taken place in recent years.  The central area appears to be used for children’s games and there are several seats and tables, which suggest common usage by the residents, as does a wok-shaped hotplate for a fire pit.  There are several stacks of firewood, which may be for this or for the residents’ own home fires.  Significantly, there is a ride-on mowing machine under a cover, which suggests that the residents themselves maintain the grass in this attractive and successful internal park reserve.

Steven Barlow September 2015