John Hart Conservatory

Built in the very early 1930s in Launceston's City Park, this conservatory is named after John Hart, a former mayor of the city and patron of the park. Its architecture, described as 'stripped classical,' still borrows decorative elements from the 19th-century Victorian tradition while foreshadowing the more geometric lines of emerging Tasmanian Art Deco. City Park itself dates back to 1858 and is also home to a famous colony of Japanese macaques, a gift from the sister city of Ikeda, which makes the whole site emblematic of Launceston. The conservatory has been closed for a restoration valued at a million Australian dollars, a sign of local residents' attachment to this small glass building. Less well known than the great mainland greenhouses, it reflects the taste of Tasmania's colonial towns for these leisure horticultural pavilions.