Soon after the end of the Second World War the Cambridge Rugby Club began work on developing memorial playing fields in Taylor Street to the north of the town centre. The first games were played there in April 1946.
On Anzac Day 1952, the same day that the Cambridge District War memorial was rededicated, memorial gates were unveiled at the park's main entrance. These bore a plaque inscribed THIS GATEWAY / AND THESE PLAYING FIELDS / ARE DEDICATED AS / A MEMORIAL TO / THE YOUNG MEN OF THE DISTRICT / WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE / 1939-45 WAR, and a roll of honour which listed 87 names.
See: ‘Memorial Park for Cambridge’, Waikato Independent, 12/4/1946, p. 5; ‘Start of Club Competitions: Rugby at Memorial Park’, Waikato Independent, 29/4/1946, p. 5; ‘Memorial Park’, Waikato Independent, 17/5/1946, p. 4; 'War Memorials Unveiled in Drizzling Anzac Rain', Waikato Independent, 28/4/1952.
Images and text: Bruce Ringer, 2019