These macrocarpa (Monterey Cypress) "doorways" offer great opportunities for games like hide and seek, and perhaps other types of fun and games. A playground doesn't always bring the term "pleasure gardens" to mind, however this playground is not far from the location of Dunedin's notorious Victorian Vauxhall Pleasure and Tea Gardens established in 1862 by Henry Farley. The gardens were extensive and elaborate, and became Dunedin's pride and shame.
Farley leased 20 acres of the headland from William Cutten, where he established the first such pleasure gardens in New Zealand, had a jetty constructed at the bottom of a cliff below Torr Street, and had a tramway cut into the cliff face. He built a hotel, baths, summer houses, sports grounds, swings and roundabouts for children, and a rotunda with a 50 yard circumference for bands to play in during summer evening dances. Statues were erected throughout the grounds and "labyrinthine walks" cut through the thick bush.
The tastes that accompanied a goldmining boom were well catered for by the "pleasure gardens". Farley found that families and single men were an uneasy mix and in early 1863 he converted 2 acres of land into a private picnic garden "where pleasure-seekers can enjoy all the conventional appliances of al fresco dinners, without being intruded on by the general company in the gardens."
By December 1864 at any given time in the afternoon, there were reported to be more than 3,000 people at the gardens and a record total number of visitors for a single day approached 5,000, in a town with a total population of about 15,000. Most of the visitors travelled to and from the gardens by boat and the bay was crowded with vessels from six in the morning until midnight. Farley offered something new each season: a swimming complex, tilting tournaments, international performers, exotic animals, fireworks, fetes and galas.
Farley surrendered the lease of the land, which still had 12 years to run, in 1871. He died in Sydney in 1880.
Now to the cache: now a film canister (the original: an eclipse container with pencil inside, has disappeared :( ). The co-ordinates may be slightly out, because of foliage. Beware of muggles and please exercise stealth.
While you are here, take a look at the impressive macrocarpa hedge further down this street, with a large circle cut into it.
Information source: "Vauxhall Gardens" by Ian Dougherty, published by Saddle Hill Press 2007
Above: Part of a watercolour painting by Wilbraham Liardet showing Vauxhall Gardens. Painted during a visit to Dunedin in 1865. Toitu Otago Settlers Museum collection.
Above: Part of a lithograph by Wilbraham Liardet "View of Otago Peninsula Opposite Dunedin, Showing Vauxhall Gardens". 1865. Hocken Collections.