The first growth spurt was south of the river, along Stawell Road. Even though there was no drainage, sewerage works or water supply, houses and businesses sprang up creating "Green Park", Horsham's first suburb.

John Denny's Green Park Hotel and Store, was first licensed on September 23, 1875. In 1878 the Shire rate book described it as "hotel, store, dwelling and stables". A more detailed description is contained in Denny's For Sale advertisement in the Horsham Times of October 19, 1883, "standing on an acre ... containing bar, store, ten accommodation rooms, cellar etc. Produce store adjoins. Cottage of four rooms. Stable of four stalls and sheds". The cottage was located at 22 Stawell Road and the hotel at number 24, the second and third buildings south of Duff Street.

The hotel was purchased about October 1884 by 56-year-old James Sexton, a successful business man from Stawell. He was a blacksmith by trade and had emigrated from London to Adelaide in 1852. By 1853 he was married and plying his trade at various goldfields. From about 1857 he'd settled in Stawell.

His first wife, Jane, died in 1874 shortly after the birth of their thirteenth child. In 1879 James set up a sawmill in Stawell supplying railway sleepers. In 1884 he married a widow, 45-year-old Martha Monument. In November 1884 they moved to Horsham to take over the Green Park Hotel. His sons, Henry and George, moved the sawmilling business to Green Park and ran it in partnership.

The hotel was doing good business but was unfortunately destroyed by fire in the early hours of July 1, 1894. Sexton engaged W F Allan to rebuild, using the same basic plan as the original.

Sexton owned and ran the Green Park Hotel for 13 years until his death on October 9, 1897. At the time of his death his estate was valued at 3,193 pounds (about $3M today). His step-son, Harry Monument, became licensee. Sexton's executors were able to sell most of his estate and divide the proceeds amongst his heirs but, despite several attempts, they had to wait until 1908 before the hotel itself was sold.

After 1900 new licensees came and went every two or three years, suggesting the business was becoming marginal. Beginning from January 7, 1901 Joseph Hunter, a local cordial manufacturer, leased the hotel for two years. He was able to secure temporary licences to set up a bar at various Horsham Coursing Club events held at their enclosure, north of Plumpton Road.

In May 1905 the inspector of nuisances made a report to the Borough Council about the unsanitary conditions at the rear of the hotel, stating that a yard behind the hotel had been "converted into a small sewerage farm".

A successful attempt by Sexton's executors to sell the hotel in June 1908 indicates the number of accommodation rooms available had been increased from 10 to 12. The licensee at the time, Albert Julian bought the hotel, ran it for another year then leased it out.

On November 14, 1913 the then licensee, Mary Spearing, was convicted of illegal liquor traffic. She was fined a total of seven pounds (equivalent to about $4500 today) by the Horsham Police Court.

Ten days later experienced publican, Phillip McCabe, took over the hotel and immediately set about renovating. However, the Licence Reduction Board on August 22, 1914 decided that the Green Park Hotel was to be closed down. Last drinks were served on December 31, 1914. Compensation of 375 pounds was paid to the owner, Albert Julian, and 75 pounds to the licensee, Phillip McCabe.

The land was subdivided and the small cottage at 22 Stawell Road was sold around 1915. The hotel itself at 24 Stawell Road was apparently sold to a Mr C Freeman, who later advertised it for sale as a private residence in October 1918.

After the hotel closed the growth of Green Park as a suburb slowed. It did not really pick up again until the late 1940s when a post war housing shortage provided the impetus to establish sewerage and drainage works so that new housing developments could go ahead.

In 1876 William Ford built the Suburban Hotel in direct competition to the Green Park Hotel. His hotel was located at 18 Stawell Road on the northside of Duff Street. It was first licensed on June 15, 1876.

The Shire rate book shows that William Ford mortgaged the Suburban Hotel to the Colonial Bank in 1881. This appears to be so he could purchase an additional 5 3/4 acres of land west of Bradshaw Street and north of Duff Street and five house blocks north of the hotel.

In December 1881 Ford leased the hotel to John Philip Cocks, a well-known musician and band-master, who had moved to Horsham from Stawell about five years earlier.

Records are thin but it seems Ford probably went bankrupt in early 1882 because the Horsham Times, began carrying advertisements for the sale of "the Assigned Estate of William Ford, of Green Park, Horsham, hotelkeeper, by order of the trustees" from April 28.

The hotel was described in the advertisements as being "a nearly new and commodious building ... with a detached kitchen, ample stabling, stockyard and on land 100 feet by 292 feet".

The hotel was advertised throughout most of 1882 and 1883. Cocks did not renew the hotel's licence beyond December 1883 and the hotel closed.

A land survey, carried out in October 1911, shows that the hotel site was by then owned by F J Turnbull. The block was subsequently subdivided and the land now carries four houses, 16A and 18 Stawell Road and 7 and 9 Duff Street.