Mount Victoria Memorial Park is unusual for being a large open space in the centre of the village, dedicated early for public use. It features several interesting historic structures such as the ferro cement ‘Mock Rock’ grottos, the Wilson Memorial Gates, the war memorial, and the timber entertainment pavilion.

Mary Finn from Hartley was the first landholder and owned 16 hectares in Mount Victoria including the Park’s land in 1865. When the holding was broken up the western part of what became the Park remained empty for many years and was called Beaumont’s Paddock between the 1880s and 1913. In 1913 the local Progress Association used the land for their centenary celebrations to memorialise the 1813 ‘crossing of the Blue Mountains’ by Europeans.

After World War One the community erected a war memorial in the Paddock and it became a de-facto park. The memorial is said to be one of the earliest war memorials in Australia as it was erected during the war, and unveiled in a public ceremony in June 1918. The names on the plaque marked with an asterisk represent those who did not return.

The eastern half of the park next to Station Street was used by the Imperial Hotel as a recreational area from c.1878 onwards. The inscription ‘Imperial Park Museum’ on the faux-timber entrance structure serves as a reminder. The ‘Mock Rock’ structures were built in the 1930s to house a small zoo. They were designed by Tom Adams who had already built similar structures at Taronga Park Zoo. The grottos follow the European principles of zoo design at the time. Adams may have had his assistants from the zoo, or had local men employed under the ‘Depression Emergency Employment’ Scheme to build the structures. Similar grottos exist in parks in Katoomba and Leura. The zoo hosted a number of animals including a tame eagle, two kangaroos, a tame fox, snakes, lizards and beautiful birds. The zoo closed sometime in the late 1940s.

“The imperial museum is at its best. recently a young fox, which is quite tame, has been added to the museum. it is responding to kind treatment, doing almost anything its keeper asks it to do.”

The Katoomba Daily, November 24, 1938

The Imperial Park was purchased by Blue Mountains Council in 1979 and finally the two halves were formally amalgamated into the Mount Victoria Memorial Park.