Grasslees Reserve

Grasslees Reserve sits on Luckie Street in Tawa, a big community park that carries far more history than its swings and slides let on. The land was once Grasslees Farm, and the reserve keeps that name and a quiet memorial alongside its everyday role as the neighbourhood's playground, dog park and picnic spot.

Equipment

The playground packs in a genuinely wide range of gear: swings with an infant swing, a multi play structure with its own slide, a see saw, a separate junior slide, a climbing frame, a basket swing, a wobbly bridge, a gravel digger and a bowl rocker. A half basketball court and the reserve's well loved hamster wheel round things out, the kind of spinning ride that tends to draw a small queue on a sunny weekend.

History and Cultural

Grasslees Reserve is a remnant of the farm where ethnologist Elsdon Best was born in 1856, before his family moved to Wellington when he was nine. Best went on to become one of New Zealand's foremost ethnologists, writing extensively on Maori history and mythology, most famously Tuhoe: The Children of the Mist in 1925. An obelisk memorial to him stands in the reserve, unveiled on 27 February 1960 by then Prime Minister Walter Nash, with Best's ashes, held by the Polynesian Society since his death in 1931, buried in an urn beneath it. Tawa Borough Council had purchased the land for the reserve back in 1958.

Practical Info

Beyond the playground, the reserve includes an off leash dog exercise area, a rose garden and electric barbecues, with picnic tables, seating and toilets close by. It sits alongside the Tawa Valley Pathway, Ara Tawa, with easy access from Davies, Luckie or Oxford Streets, and off street parking makes it a straightforward stop whether you are there for the kids, the dog, or the roses.