Jacksons Recreation Ground, Fort Pitt Gardens (and Victoria Gardens) form an interconnected group of late C19 to mid C20 public gardens and parks in which remnants of their original design survive. Victoria Gardens commemorates Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 while the land for Jacksons Recreation Ground was donated by the Mayor of Rochester, John Howard Jackson, in 1914. In 1871 the land now occupied by both Fort Pitt Gardens and the Jacksons Recreation Ground was acquired by the City of Rochester on a short tenancy from the War Department as a public recreation ground at a rental of £56/annum. By 1914 the City of Rochester had all three gardens in its posession. The land upon which the gardens are now situated can be traced back to remnant earthworks surring the former C19 Fort Pitt itself, completed in 1818, before being converted to a military hospital in 1828. While Jackson Recreation Ground was opened to the public in 1914, it was not until 1946 that Fort Pitt Gardens were established when the Parks Committee re-profiled the naturally steep slope into the Gardens. During the 1940s RAF aerial photographs show Jackson Recreation Ground being extensively used by the military with defensive earthworks being created. Fort Pitt Gardens are shown as being used as air raid shelters by the hospital. Jackson Recreation Ground was reinstated in 1948. Little remains of Fort Pitt Gardens original design, however, Jacksons Recreation Ground retains a number of more original features.