Heywood Park — Attraction in Adelaide

A lovely native Australian park. Here is a bit of history from the Unley City Council.

Individual trees from the original Black Forest still exist within the City of Unley but only one remaining stand of grey-box woodland can be found - in Heywood Park at Northgate Street, Unley Park.

A fierce battle was fought in the 1920s to save Heywood Park for the Unley community.

The park takes its name from the Lancashire birthplace of its last private owner, State MP William Haslam, who bought 14 acres of land and a house by Brownhill Creek in 1896. Locals began looking longingly at tree-covered Heywood in1909 but the land was not for sale.

When eight acres of the land became available in 1917, shortly after Haslam's death, Unley councillor William Langham took up the cause. Three years later, while he was mayor, he suggested the council should buy the land to use as a park.

There was a heated public debate and a poll on whether the council should acquire the land was lost. But Mayor Langham was not willing to give up the fight and decided to raise the money himself by calling for public donations.

Some councillors cried foul and another row broke out but the mayor had managed to raise more than 4,000 pounds. The council gave in and paid for the land in April 1920. The stoush was still not over though, with two rival buyers taking the matter to court because the poll had failed.

After a year of legal action, the council eventually took possession of the land and Heywood Park finally had its gala opening - complete with pony rides and a merry-go-round - on 10...

Don’t get me wrong, I think this park is a great concept but there’s a few things that bother me. It’s not fenced, which with small kids is a worry for me. It’s so spread out that it’s really hard to see where your kids are if you have two and they’re in different parts of the park (yes you could ask your kids to play close together but maybe one is smaller and can’t go on the bigger equipment), the toilet block is miles away from everything and is always filthy. For some reason I always get the feeling my kids have got more chance of being snatched from this park. I don’t know why, maybe just lots of blind spots, hard to keep track of where they are. I’ve been here twice. Once by choice the other for a kids party. After the first visit it probably wouldn’t be somewhere I’d have gone again till my kids are a bit older but with the party it was obviously not my choice. I’m not normally a paranoid parent, if anything I tend to just let my kids go play and watch from afar but I just feel like I can’t do that at Heywood. Other than this, the equipment is great, a good choice of play, from nature play, an obstacle course and the usual...

An old green square that's been turned into a must-go-to park in the posh end of town. Both of my grandies loved the mini-ninjas obstacle course which is ideally suited for the older kids or the older persons who wished they were. An other structured playground was also a hit with them but the younger kids haven't been forgotten with a swing and see-saw in another area close to the other areas. Plenty of tables and chairs available for the quick and/or early but plenty of well maintained grass areas for sitting down on and enjoying your picnic. A favourite spot for birthday parties especially in the mornings, that on the day we were there, miraculously evaporated away on the stroke of 1200 hrs. Please be prepared to take your rubbish home as the small number of bins there were all overflowing and litter was discarded, sometimes where some picnickers had been. A big WELL DONE must go to the Unley Council for what they've done at Heywood...