Anderson Park

Anderson Park is a Mount Albert sports ground first and a playground second: the small play space sits where the football fields meet the tennis courts, off Preston Avenue in central Auckland. It works best for families already there for weekend football, a hit of tennis or a run around the big lawns.

Equipment

The standout is a tall rope climbing pyramid on a yellow frame, threaded with blue netting, which suits confident climbers more than toddlers. A metal frame behind it looks to hold swings, and one grandparent writes of their moko having a swing and climbing the rope gym. The council calls it a small playground,¹ and that is fair: we could see no separate toddler area, so under fives may run out of things to do quickly. A picnic table sits beside the play area.¹

History and Cultural

The fields are the home ground of Mount Albert-Ponsonby AFC, whose current form dates from the 1971 merger of Mount Albert FC and Ponsonby, a side that won the Chatham Cup in 1927 and 1933.² On game days the clubroom deck fills with people watching, and the rooms can be hired for functions.

Practical Info

Drive in from Preston Avenue, where the car park gates open 7am to 9pm,¹ though visitors warn the driveway is narrow and easy to miss. On foot, a walkway runs in from New North Road between numbers 1138 and 1142 and is open 24 hours.¹ There are no public toilets, a gap two reviewers raise, but there is a drinking fountain under the football clubrooms deck.¹ The three tennis courts beside the playground are open to the public when the club is not using them.¹

Dogs are banned from the playground and the sports fields and must be leashed elsewhere in the park.¹ Established trees give some summer shade,¹ but the play area itself is open, with only a low rail between it and the fields.

For more play on the same outing, Alan Wood Reserve is about 400 m away and Harbutt Reserve a little over half a kilometre.