Bowen Park, Heritage park in Bowen Hills, Brisbane, Australia.

Bowen Park is a 17,740-square-metre remnant of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society's gardens at the corner of O'Connell Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road. Its surviving northern portion held the display gardens, with a quatrefoil-shaped island in a lagoon, a bamboo grove backdrop and winding paths through massed shrubberies. Decorative features included a four-metre coral-stone grotto fountain encrusted with shells and ferns, four neo-classical statues of the seasons and giant clam shells.

The Queensland Acclimatisation Society created this park in 1863 on the site of a former brickfield. It served as an experimental garden to test new plant varieties before wider agricultural adoption.

The gardens were named after Sir George Bowen, Queensland's first governor and the society's patron. The Acclimatisation Society held educational meetings on botanical subjects and supplied plants to towns, churches and cemeteries. Its overseer from 1885 to 1898, William Soutter, was known for scientific experimentation and horticultural skill.

The park is easily accessible from several entry points along O'Connell Terrace and Bowen Bridge Road, with well-maintained pathways throughout. You can walk at your own pace through the different sections and explore the grounds comfortably.

The Queensland Acclimatisation Society also kept animals at Bowen Park: deer, llamas, rabbits, Chinese sheep, Angora goats, pheasants, partridges and songbirds were on show at various times. Unlike the societies in New South Wales and Victoria, the QAS concentrated on plants.