City Park fountain to be restored to former glory with care

Questions over the fate of the fountain began circulating on social media early September, with some residents concerned it may be replaced with a replica.

Public space project officer Geoff Farquhar-Still said the fountain had to be disassembled and removed from its location as part of a restoration project, but it would be reinstated complete with plumbing.

"We may want to get some of the elements within the drinking fountain recast and replaced," Mr Farquhar-Still said.

"This would involve stripping the paint off the whole structure as well because there's a lead-based paint on the surface of it.

"We wouldn't want to do that in City Park."

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Mr Farquhar-Still said the project would be done under the watchful eye of conservators, and there was a focus on retaining as much of the original structure as possible.

The restoration was instigated by a piece of ironwork breaking off the structure and a review by conservators found other parts that were likely to fail owing to the fountain's age.

Some of these are more minor and able to be replaced in a matter of months while the canopy needs to be replaced in the next year.

The fountain has a remarkable history, and it was commissioned in 1887 to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.

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Unpaid dues meant the fountain, which was shipped in pieces from Scotland as what Mr Farquhar-Still described as "Victorian IKEA", languished in storage for the better part of a decade.

In 1897 an event - the Juvenile Industrial Exhibition - raised the requisite funds and the fountain was erected in time for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

It is also one of the last surviving examples of work produced by Glasgow-based Walter Macfarlane & Co.

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"So much of the work that came out of Macfarlane & Co. was distributed around the Commonwealth, particularly in England," Mr Farquhar-Still said.

"It was then redeployed during World War Two to turn into weapons, much of it was melted down and used for the war effort.

"There's only a few left in the world."

Work also remains underway to restore the Dolphin Fountain, another rarity and one of two surviving pieces made by Alexander "Greek" Thomson.

Key parts of each project - cast ironwork for the Children's Jubilee Fountain and terracotta for the Dolphin Fountain - are being produced by Launceston-based businesses including Castings Tasmania and Glasgow Engineering.

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Mr Farquhar-Still said this further strengthened ties to the past, as both metalwork businesses were founded in the 19^th Century.

"As a city we're so incredibly fortunate to be able to say 'we can get that done here'," he said.

"Everyone else would need to go overseas or interstate to get access to that kind of industry."

Mayor Matthew Garwood said although rumours on social media were incorrect, it was heartening to see how invested the community was in maintaining the city's heritage.

"It shows how important and how invested in this community can be, but also, how much is going on in this space for for the council," Cr Garwood said.

"It's really exciting to think that we can, as a community, revive and restore things that have hundreds of years of history.

"It would be careless of the council to let the fountain fall into a state of disrepair and we are simply taking steps to make sure that doesn't happen, and to make sure this incredible piece of 19th Century craftsmanship is around for another hundred years or more."

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