Anzac Square

This gracious formal city park - a favourite lunch spot of downtown office workers for the past eighty years - is unique due to its every component having some wartime significance, from the Boer to Vietnam wars.

The Middle Eastern date palms are an acknowledgement of Australia’s role in that region in both wars, the iconic bottle trees commemorate the Qld Light Horse Regiments service in the Boer war and the 18 columns of the cenotaph of the eternal flame overlooking the park represent 1918, the year World War I ended.

Meantime all of the sculptures hail from the various conflicts and again these are unique in portraying women’s role in war. A controversial-when-unveiled example of the latter is the nurse tending to the wounded soldier which attracted criticism in its depiction of the woman in the power position. Another, the sandstone Women’s War Memorial by acclaimed sculptress Daphne Mayo reputedly contains an image of her only brother who died from the after effects of gas poisoning in World War I.