Laurel Bank Park

Laurel Bank Park is a beautiful 4.5 hectare parkland close to Toowoomba's city centre, featuring spectacular manicured gardens, a scented garden, a collection of exotic trees, a playground, picnic area, gazebo and croquet greens. Beautiful year-round, but known for its sublime spring displays and avenues of cherry blossoms, it is most magnificent during Carnival of Flowers each September. The Scented Gardens, are a 'garden within a garden' created from ideas presented by the Downs Association of the Blind, and feature fragrant blooms, herbs and shrubs in raised beds. The park came into being in 1932 when Darling Downs Building Society Managing Director, Mr Samuel George Stephens, donated the land to the people of Toowoomba, with the City Council official custodian. Prior to gifting the land, Mr Stephens improved it with shrubs and flowers, and was known to many as 'the man of flowers'. He asked that flowers be supplied to Toowoomba Hospital and that the land be retained as a park and not used as a sporting facility, with the exception of the Croquet Greens along Herries Street. Laurel Bank Hall was built during World War II and used as a mess hall for United States naval troops.