Victoria Park Market, Historic marketplace in Freemans Bay, New Zealand

Victoria Park Market sits on the grounds of a former waste disposal facility in Freemans Bay and now contains galleries, workshops, studios, offices, restaurants, and shops. The complex spreads across several connected buildings that together create a lively venue for shopping, art exhibitions, and dining.

The Meldrum Destructor was tendered in 1904 to J. Barre Johnston Ltd of Sydney and completed in 1905, after Auckland City Council acted on plague fears from rats. Brick buildings followed from 1905 to 1918, including a 38 m chimney and stables for 94 rubbish-cart horses. The destructor stopped in 1972 and the depot in 1981; a public campaign saved the complex from demolition, and a NZ$20 million refurbishment finished in 2013.

The market takes its name from the adjacent Victoria Park, created in 1905 and named for the queen who had died four years earlier. Since 1984 a Celebrity Walk of Fame has set the hand or footprints of New Zealanders such as Sir Edmund Hillary, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Billy T James, John Walker and Rachel Hunter into the paving.

The grounds are easy to walk around with buildings connected together, allowing visitors to move comfortably between shops, restaurants, and galleries. The area works well for a half-day visit, with the range of offerings providing something for different interests.

The street running directly behind and above the market follows the top of an ancient sea cliff, a remnant of the Freemans Bay headland before late-1870s reclamation widened the foreshore. The 38-metre chimney of the 1905 Meldrum Destructor still stands as a landmark of the incinerator complex.