Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This Saturday and Sunday and the following Saturday and Sunday, people in my community will be able to enjoy the annual Wisteria Festival in the Wisteria Gardens of the Cumberland Hospital. They are gardens with an extraordinary history. They were built back in 1907 to surround Wisteria House, or Glengarriff House as it is sometimes called, built for Dr Williamson, who was the medical superintendent of the hospital. For many years it was only open for two weeks of the year. It was opened to the public in 1929 for a small fee, which raised money for the hospital. For many years, the fete has been running for two weekends every year. The gardens are now open permanently, by the way. Now you can walk through them at any time. They link down to Governor Phillip Walk, one of two Governor Phillip walks in Sydney. So make sure it's the Parramatta River Walk, which traces the walk that Governor Phillip did along the Parramatta River to his campsite where Darling Mills Creek and Toongabbie Creek meet to form the Parramatta River. It's a really interesting site. There is also an art exhibition. The Parramatta Art Society has their Wisteria Festival arts exhibit at the park hall running through the whole 10 days, so it's worth getting there as well. You will sometimes see it spelt with an 'a' rather than an 'e', as if it were 'Wistaria', but it's actually 'Wisteria'. That was the original spelling of the word. If that's what you see, it's talking about that wonderful garden. Go and have a look. (Time expired)