Queens Park

Queen's Park has been a meeting place for Australians since before Limestone station was open, and was known as a camping place for local Aboriginal Peoples.

On Henry Wade's survey of Limestone in 1842 he marked an area in Woodend, near St Mary's, as a "reserve for public recreation and extension", although this area was not to become Queen's Park it did start the wheels in motion for the park's beginnings. In 1856 the Department of Lands and Public Works, Sydney, approved the current site of Queen's Park for the same purpose in September 1858, although it was under the provision that land be granted to the railway if needed. The Trustees were nominated in 1859, but were not officially appointed until 1862 when the Deed of Grant was recorded for 207 acres of parkland. The Trustees were all prominent members of the community and included:

• John Panton
• George Thorn Jnr.
• Patrick O'Sullivan
• Frederick Forbes
• Christopher Gorry
• Henry Challinor
• Arthur McAlister
• Henry Kilner
• George Faircloth

Because the Dead of Grant was not passed until after Queensland separated as a colony they had to fight a proposal by the new Queensland Government to sell the northern part of the park.

At this time it was rare for a park like Queen's Park to have private trustees, and as such the Council believed the park should have been under their control. This was supported by some of the public, as there were at least seven petitions lodged or requests made that the control of the park be handed to the Council between 1863 and 1872. The council did not gain control of the park until the 1890s, once many of the original trustees had passed away.

In 1864 the Director of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Walter Hill, supplied a plan for the park layout and suitable trees for planting. When he visited the park in 1876 he pointed out that his plans had not been followed, but that the park was well maintained and the plants were growing well. In 1875 the park was also supplied fruit trees and flowering shrubs by the Brisbane Botanic Gardens and Acclimatisation Society. By the mid-1890s the park had also had a bush house and band rotunda constructed, and was known to drew large audiences for Saturday concerts.

In the early 1900s there were several sporting groups that set up in the park, the Ipswich Croquet Club was founded in 1902 and the Ipswich Bowling Club was founded in 1910 and opened their green in 1912. Although the Ipswich Bowling Club clubhouse was originally designed by W. Haenke in 1914 it was replaced in the 1960s.

As well as providing a place for entertainment the park was used for scientific and commercial purposes, providing a space for farming experiments and a propagation garden.

It was in 1915 that F. W. Turley took over as the curator of the park, after training at Kew Gardens in England, and it was he that planted Bougainvillea in the garden, which popularised the plant in the city and resulted in it becoming the floral emblem of Ipswich in 1930. A variety that has a brick red flower is called Turley's Special after Mr. Turley.

In the 1930s Ipswich provided work for the unemployed through large-scale programs carried out by relief labour. Queen's Park housed several of these programs:

• The park curator's house was relocated to its current position
• enclosures were built to accommodate the menagerie in 1936
• The Croquet Club built their clubhouse in 1933
• The Ipswich Lawn Tennis Association built their clubhouse in 1934
• The Ipswich Bowls Club clubhouse was extended in 1935

The incinerator was also constructed in 1935, designed by Walter Burley Griffin it is today one of only six surviving of an original twelve incinerators of this type in Australia. Although it finished operations in 1960 it was opened in 1969 as the home to the Ipswich Little Theatre, who still reside there today.

Queen's Park was placed on the Queensland Heritage Register on the 27 September 2002.