The Orange Botanic Gardens has become a popular location for joggers, dog walkers, weddings, birthdays, picnics and other events but there was strong opposition when it was first proposed.
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Back in the 1970s when the land was offered and the concept of transforming it into public gardens was touted, the land was out of town, not in the middle of suburbia like it is today.
Former Orange mayor Reg Kidd was involved in the project since it was raised by the council's Orange Parks Street Trees and Waterways Committee in 1979.
"I wasn't a councillor at that stage obviously, but I was at TAFE [as a Rural Studies teacher] and I was on the committee and there was discussion about the need for a new park with Orange growing," Mr Kidd said.
"A bloke called Eric Neville who used to work with the BODC, which was the Bathurst Orange Development Corporation, said there was a good way of getting the land out there because the BODC was sort of imploding, sort of stopping."
It was proposed that a 16 acre hobby farm on Kearney's Drive known as Clover Hill be developed into a formal park.
By building the large park, the BODC wouldn't need to set aside small plots in its north Orange subdivision for "breathing spaces in every so-many hectares" as part of a government law for urban clean air in all new developments. Orange City Council also determined that a large block would be easier and more economical to maintain than a lot of small parks.
"Negotiations started to take place and we were able to get that land out there or the initial parcel of land, it had been fairly well run down, it had been leased out and had a whole heap of rubbish on it," Mr Kidd said.
"It was very controversial, we had a couple of conservation groups from Orange that I can tell you at the time were against the developing a garden out there, they said the soil's too poor and it was too far out of town and all sorts of things but didn't get the picture that we were getting that land for nothing.
"It you have a look at it now it's completely surrounded by urbanisation."
Mr Kidd said there was "lots of lobbying" for about two years.
"With my TAFE students we did lots of cleaning up, there was blackberries on it and lots of tin and bottles and a few old buildings and old dairy on part of it and some old cattle yards."
William and Alma May Maker cleared 44 acres at the Clover Hill site in 1924 and built a slab house from vertically placed railway sleepers.
The couple had six children and Mr Maker later bought 11 acres from his father on the town side and made a market garden on the land growing vegetables such as peas, tomatoes and cabbage.
The property was sold undivided to a Mr Ridd who ran sheep on it until he sold it to Mr and Mrs Cantrell who had a few cows and a few draft horses but was chiefly remembered for "driving his sulky with his red-headed wife aboard to town each week well into the 1960s".
The property was divided by the next sale with Keith Johnston, a buyer from Rodger's Meatworks buying part and Peter Fuller, who owned draft horses buying another section.
The last owner before the BODC bought the property was chartered accountant Geoff Niven who ran it as a mixed hobby farm.
The Clover Hill homestead burnt down in the late 1970s leaving the old slab hut and garden being the only remnants with which to start the new park.
- The Central Western Daily will continue the story of the Orange Botanic Gardens next Saturday.
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