Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens, Heritage garden in Indooroopilly, Australia.
Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens is a former private garden of about 3.09 hectares on the banks of the Brisbane River at Harts Road, Indooroopilly. A wedge-shaped residential garden occupied roughly the northern third, with the house placed centrally in its western half; the rest was fenced paddocks running down to the river, and a large dam lay below the garden. Bougainvillea hedges defined a drying area, tennis court and vegetable garden south-east of the house, and a pedestrian path and two crushed-gravel driveways entered from Harts Road.
Henry Thomas bought the land on the Brisbane River between 1898 and 1900 and laid out the garden he called "Somerset" around the turn of the century. He bred the bougainvillea cultivar Bougainvillea spectabilis "Thomasii" before 1905, and from the 1920s the garden drew paying visitors and hosted annual fund-raising parties. It became a public park after 1958 and was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 10 October 2014.
Henry Thomas named the property "Somerset" after Wellow, Somerset, his English birthplace. From the 1920s the gardens hosted annual fund-raising parties, the first in September 1929 for St Andrew's Church of England, Indooroopilly, of which Thomas was a member. Visitors entered beneath bougainvillea-covered archways and a pergola, past large urns at the house steps.
The garden lies at 151 Harts Road, Indooroopilly, on the banks of the Brisbane River. Three crushed-gravel access ways leave Harts Road: a pedestrian path running north–south to the house front, a main driveway running east–west to a turning circle around a staghorn-bearing palm, and a secondary driveway along the western boundary. The residential garden occupies the northern third of the site; fenced paddocks slope down to the river.
The bougainvillea variety developed here attracted visitors from across Australia who came specifically to see the mature specimens. Those original plants still grow on the grounds today, their size and age testament to how long these flowering plants can thrive when properly tended.
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