11 minute read
Living Memorials: Tales of the Shrine’s trees
BY MARY WARD
The landscape of the Shrine’s sweeping gardens, which now include some 320 memorial trees, has evolved significantly over the past 90 years.
By the time construction of the Shrine of Remembrance was completed in 1934, the surrounding area was essentially barren. The vision of architects Philip Hudson and James Wardrop was of a landscape with paths radiating out from the centre as a series of axes, with blocks of planting and views in each direction. It has taken 90 years for the Shrine Reserve we have today to develop and much has changed in that time. Unlike a building, which is essentially static in form, a landscape evolves and changes constantly.
The 123 hectares encompassing the Domain Parklands was put aside by then-Superintendent Charles La Trobe in the early 1840s. Before the arrival of European settlers in 1835, the area would have been predominantly grassy woodland with light tree cover, mainly eucalypts, particularly Yellow Box, Eucalyptus melliodora, and River Redgum, Eucalyptus camaldulensis. This changed when much of the Domain was cleared of trees in the 1850s after gold was discovered and a tent city sprang up to help cope with Melbourne’s rapidly expanding population.
Following the establishment of the Botanic Gardens in 1846, the Domain, including the 13 hectares of what would become the Shrine Reserve in 1933, came under the management of the Directors of the Botanic Gardens, first with Baron von Mueller in 1856 and then with William Guilfoyle in 1873. An arboretum was established, with planting and landscaping reflecting that of the Botanic Gardens, particularly under Guilfoyle.
Many hundreds of trees had to be removed for the construction of the Shrine and for the proposed landscaping to be developed. This caused consternation among sections of the community, particularly as many of the oaks and elms had been planted by Guilfoyle and Mueller. The Botanic Gardens Committee warned that the trees’ removal destroyed the link to the ‘people’s garden’. An aerial photo taken during early construction shows considerable tree cover on the northern aspect and the route of the old South Yarra Drive, sweeping across the front of the building before following a path similar to that of the current approach from St Kilda Road. The road was later realigned to the east and renamed Birdwood Avenue, in honour of Lieutenant General Sir William Birdwood.
At the end of construction the first memorial trees were planted. On 4 August 1934, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, more than 100 saplings were planted across the northern side of the Shrine Reserve and dedicated to Victorian units. Around 3,000 people gathered for the funeral-like ceremony, with the trees helping to fill the role of absent graves. A year before that, however, a very significant tree was planted –the Lone Pine seedling.
Following the Battle of Lone Pine in August and September 1915, Thomas Keith McDowell of the 23rd Battalion collected a pinecone from the solitary Lone Pine on the Gallipoli Peninsula. On his return to Australia in 1916 he gave it to his wife’s aunt, Emma Gray. After about 10 years, she successfully grew four seedlings.
One was dedicated in Wattle Park, Burwood, home ground of the 24th Battalion, in May 1933. The second was dedicated to the 24th Battalion at the Shrine in June 1933. The third was also planted in June 1933 at The Sisters Memorial Hall, near Mortlake, and the fourth was planted in Warrnambool’s Botanic Gardens in January 1934. The pine is a species that is native to the Gallipoli Peninsula, Pinus brutia, the Turkish or Calabrian Pine, which grows mainly around the coast of the eastern Mediterranean basin. The trees in Wattle Park and Warrnambool are still standing, but the tree at The Sisters unfortunately succumbed to strong winds in July 2016.
The original Lone Pine at the Shrine had to be removed in August 2012 because of a fungal infection. A seedling grown from that tree, a grandchild tree, had been planted in 2006 but had to be removed in March 2016 because of waterlogging. The area was built up and a second grandchild tree was planted in April 2017 and again dedicated to the 24th Battalion. This grandchild of the original Lone Pine on Gallipoli provides a living link, nearly 110 years on, to those men who were there.
Details of the original commemorative planting on 11 June 1933 were written up in The Age newspaper the following day.
The little plant cultivated from a seed of the famous Lone Pine on Gallipoli was planted with full military honours yesterday afternoon, in the presence of a column of the 24th Battalion of the militia forces and lines of war veterans who saw service with the renowned regiment. Headed by the battalion’s band … the column marched from the Domain, north of Government House gates, to the plot marked to receive the plant. Archdeacon Lamble was in attendance to dedicate the plant. Mrs. Gray, of Grassmere, who grew the plant from the seed brought from Gallipoli, placed the first spadeful of soil around the tree in its new bed.
Wandering through the trees dedicated to First World War units is a journey through the human devastation left by that conflict. The importance of memorial trees, even in their infancy, to the men and families intimately involved can only be imagined, but it would take around 50 years and many more changes for the Shrine Reserve as envisaged by the architects to be fully realised.
The northern slopes heading towards St Kilda Road were the site of slit trenches in the 1940s, dug as air raid precautions for workers at Victoria Barracks. Construction of the Second World War Memorial Forecourt in the 1950s resulted in the removal or re-siting of earlier Memorial Trees, and many of the Reserve’s tall, stately spotted gums, Corymbia maculata, date from that time. Following the Forecourt construction, the Reserve was divided into sections dedicated to the Army, Navy, Air Force and Allied Forces, and to different conflicts, with First World War and allies on the north-eastern side and Second World War on the western side.
The widening of the northern approach from Anzac Avenue in the mid-1960s led to more changes, but the avenue of Bhutan cypresses, Cupressus torulosa, was planted following that work. Now standing tall at either side like a guard of honour, they certainly give that sense of solemnity and pilgrimage the architects were looking for as people approach from the city.
Different tree species had been used along that approach from the time of construction, with earlier cypresses replacing the initial Queensland Brush Box and Queensland Kauri. The more lightly treed southern section of the Reserve had been left clear to allow for crowds to gather. The complementary avenue of Bhutan cypresses along the approach from Domain Road was not planted until 1981.
The inner row of English elms, Ulmus procera, on the northern side of the Shrine date from the 1950s and ’60s. The mature elms that grow in Melbourne’s parks and gardens, with their striking yellow autumn foliage, are some of the most significant in the world following the loss of tens of millions of trees across Europe after the onset of Dutch elm disease in the 1970s. That mix of deciduous and evergreen trees brings intentional variation and colour to the planting blocks, with autumn colour from mature oaks, elms and plane trees a feature around Anzac Day.
Three external memorials have been added to the Reserve over the past five decades. The Legacy Garden of Appreciation on the east (1978) is planted with red-flowering salvias for Anzac Day and Flanders poppies for Remembrance Day. To the west, the Garden of Remembrance and Post 45 Memorial (1985) is dedicated to conflicts and peacekeeping missions since the Second World War. It is backed by a magnificent spreading Turkey Oak, Quercus ceris, and features mainly dry-land species. The Women’s Memorial Garden (2010), with its concrete violets blooming by a grove of purple-flowering jacarandas, commemorates 85 years of women’s service. Visitors entering from Birdwood Avenue along the north-east axis now walk through the Gallipoli Memorial Garden. This softens the approach and gives context to the Gallipoli campaign and the Lone Pine.
In the past 20 to 30 years, the changing climate has led to failing trees being removed and replaced by species chosen for their ability to cope with hotter, dryer conditions. The design of axes and views envisaged by Hudson and Wardrop will be strengthened and maintained, but with more resilient planting. Recent additions include a row of Queensland Kauri, Agathis robusta, marching down the path to the St Kilda Road steps while Stone Pine, Pinus picea, and Sawtooth Oak, Quercus acutissima, dot the western slopes.
Following years of drought and water restrictions, Lombardy poplars, Populus nigra ‘Italica’, planted along the Birdwood Avenue perimeter during the 1930s were removed in 2005 and again in 2010. They were replaced by 130 lemon-scented gums, Corymbia citriodora, trees that are sustainable on a dry ridge without irrigation. Commemorative plaques affected by the poplars’ removal were reinstalled in the Reserve under existing or replacement trees.
All the Memorial Trees are significant, especially to those who relate directly to them for commemoration, but there are also trees significant because of what they are. On the National Tree Register, and surviving on Birdwood Avenue where the poplars did not, is a Brazilian Pepper Tree, Schinus terebinthifolius. On the western slope, the stately Golden Poplar, Populus canadensis ‘Aurea’, commemorating the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam, defies climate expectations. An English Oak, Quercus robur, planted in 1954 to represent the United Kingdom, was sourced from an acorn from Windsor Great Park and is an example of an exotic that is continuing to cope well with local conditions.
Along with the grandchild Lone Pine, two other living links connect us to conflicts far from home. The Tobruk Fig, Ficus carica, was grown from a cutting from the original fig tree in Tobruk. The Gallipoli Oak, Quercus coccifera, is linked directly to acorns collected on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Moreton Bay figs, Ficus macrophylla, on the southern boundary along Domain Road have stood witness to years of change and construction. One in particular, dedicated to 33–38 Squadrons, is thought to date from the 1880s and was probably planted by the stables of the grand Victorian Mansion known as ‘The Grange’, which stood on the site until around 1910.
Trees form a key component of the memorial itself and walking through the Shrine Reserve today you are surrounded by mature trees and native birdsong in a landscape 90 years in the making. Although there is a mix of native and exotic trees across the area, it is easy to imagine what the men of the Australian Imperial Force had in mind in the 1920s and ’30s when they expressed a clear preference for native trees to be planted in memory of their colleagues. Do we feel their ghosts among us as we walk? They missed the sights, sounds and scents of home that we can all enjoy today as we wander through the Shrine Reserve.
This is a place to pause and reflect, to appreciate how important the landscape is to the essential purpose of the place and why it is regarded as Melbourne’s most prominent memorial landscape. It is truly a place of sanctuary and solace.
Mary Ward has been a volunteer at the Shrine of Remembrance for the past 10 years and at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria for 20 years.
