Rofe Park Turramurra was not on Wikipedia before now – there is an entry for Rofe Park in Hornsby that has been there a while. I first submitted the article to Wikipedia in February 2024, after much change and back and forth with editors, the article was accepted and created on the 21 June.

My reason for getting Rofe Park Turramurra on Wikipedia was that it reaches much further and is more permanent than the website and domain created in 2022.

The disadvantage of a website is that it needs to be managed and a payment made for the domain yearly and obviously I won't be around forever! In the future the Wikipedia site can be edited by others.

During the last year, Councillor Jeff Pettett tried again to get Rofe Park heritage listed. This failed for the second time, the council heritage committee were not interested. I think we can give the idea a miss. The heritage listing is symbolic only and would have had no influence on development near the park. If the councillors were determined to vote for synthetic turf on Mimosa Park they would have done so regardless of a heritage listing. See for example, Gardiner Park, Banksia in the Bayside area.

I hope that eventually we can get a decent sign at the Mimosa Road entrance for Rofe Park. If anyone would like to make a bit of noise about this please feel free!

My next task is to work out how to add pictures to the Wikipedia article. Nothing is straightforward and everything must be a watertight public copyright to be on Wikipedia. My estimation of the information on Wikipedia has improved enormously now I know how difficult it can be to get published.

Here is an extract from the Wikipedia article describing how Rofe Park became council land:

Thomas and Minnie Rofe were living in Wahroonga, Sydney in 1927 when they gave the 50 acres of land to the Council of the Shire of Ku-ring-gai.

In the Sydney Morning Herald article dated 6 April 1927, Councillor Thistlethwayte, president of Ku-ring-gai Shire said:

This generous act on Mr Rofe’s part, is being consummated to-night in the transfer of the property to the council, and the execution of a deed of trust by the council, so that the area will for all time be an open space in which the preservation of the natural fauna and flora will be a dominant feature. The land is well wooded and includes a natural cave unsurpassed in the metropolitan area.

This article has been written by Trish Lynch, STEP’s Facebook manager, who lives near Rofe Park and has studied its history.