Laurel Bank Park

Laurel Bank Park is a beautiful 4.5-hectare parkland close to Toowoomba’s city centre. Laurel Bank Park is one of Toowoomba’s most loved green spaces, with classic English-style gardens, mature trees and seasonal floral displays. Visitors can also enjoy a scented garden, playground, barbecue and picnic areas, and two croquet lawns.
The park changes with the seasons, from rich autumn foliage and striking winter branches to the fresh colour and growth of spring and summer. In spring, Laurel Bank Park is filled with thousands of flowers, a purple wisteria arbour and an avenue of ornamental peach trees. Around 70,000 to 80,000 annuals and 11,000 bulbs are planted each year for the vibrant displays.
In 1932, Darling Downs Building Society Managing Director Mr Samuel George Stephens donated the land to the people of Toowoomba, with the City Council appointed as its 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.