Description of Historic Place

The Stanley Park Rock Garden is composed of intact areas and the remains of an early pleasure garden in Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia. It is located adjacent to the Pavilion and Malkin Bowl. Consisting of ornamental and native plant material, rock walls and pathways, the garden surrounds an open formal area and extends along the north edge of an internal roadway west of Pipeline Road.

Heritage Value

Constructed between 1911 and 1920, the heritage value of the Stanley Park Rock Garden lies in its historical associations, its design qualities, its social importance and its association with Vancouver Park Board master gardener John Montgomery.

The Rock Garden is valued as the first public pleasure garden in Vancouver. It is associated with the social and recreational life of the city during its growth period prior to the Second World War, and with the important role of Stanley Park as an integral part of the everyday lives of the citizens of Vancouver. As much of Stanley Park was undeveloped forest, this was initially the only garden available to the public for pleasure outings, picnics and forested walks. Even as other parks gradually opened up across the city, it remained a feature attraction and an important destination for residents and visitors alike. Its importance is also revealed through its use for ceremonial purposes such as tree plantings and memorial plaques.

The Rock Garden is valuable for the remaining form and materials that give clues to its former glory. Sections of what was an overgrown and largely forgotten garden were rediscovered following a windstorm in late 2006 that uprooted many trees in Stanley Park. The intact western section extending to Pipeline Road consists of gravel pathways, stone walls and the planted rockery, and a massed abundance of ornamental and native plant material, evidence of the beauty of the garden in its completed layout. Traces of a similar garden can still be seen today in the eastern section, which originally included winding pathways, wooden benches and rose covered arbours.

As a key piece in the collection of individual landscapes within Stanley Park, the Rock Garden represents a naturalistic approach to park design and planting, and reflects early 20th century conventions in garden design. Utilizing the same rustic style as the adjacent Pavilion and other park structures - a National Park lodge style - the use of logs, wood and stone in the Rock Garden maintain this naturalistic character. The Rock Garden is important for its integration into the landscape of the Pavilion through its location, form and materials; rocks for the garden were obtained during the excavation for the Pavilion.

The Rock Garden has significance through its tradition of Edwardian pleasure gardens with benches, arbours and pathways that were open to the public, and for its remaining features that are representative of its original scale and form. Pleasure gardens of the era created rural, naturalistic idylls to capture the romance of the countryside within the confines of the ever-expanding urban landscape. Influenced by local British traditional garden design and the plant collecting that was popular in the early 20th century, the Rock Garden displays a casual garden style, an informal rockery garden constructed to look wild.

The Rock Garden is valued for its relationship to the work of the Vancouver Park Board, and in particular to Park Board master gardener John Montgomery. Montgomery joined the Park Board in 1909, at the age of 65, after moving to Vancouver from Scotland. The individual effort of Montgomery, who advocated for the transfer of large rocks to the site and who constructed the garden over a period of nine years, is a testament to his dedication and perseverance.

Source: City of Vancouver, Planning and Development Services, Urban Design Division

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Stanley Park Rock Garden include:

- its location and setting in the earliest developed area of Stanley Park
- its physical, linear relationship to the Stanley Park Pavilion and Malkin Bowl
- the still-identifiable form of the garden surrounding the Pavilion and and formal garden extending out to Pipeline Road
- the remains of winding pathways
- the intact, original replacement of rock in informal, rustic rockery walls interplanted with a great variety of plant material, primarily on the west side of the garden and along an internal roadway connecting to Pipeline Road
- similar, relatively intact traces of the rockery in situ on the east side of the garden
- remaining ornamental and native plant material, including coniferous and deciduous trees, shrubs, groundcover, bulbs and perennials
- stone stairs and walls
- memorial plaques with their associated tree plantings