Behind the Parliament House is a beautiful and peaceful garden, which is mostly surrounded by a high stone wall. The park is the oldest Icelandic public park that has been preserved in its original form since 1894. The park is a nice location to sit down on a bench and observe the environment. In Alþingi in 1893, a proposal was made on how to spend the money that had been collected in the parliament building fund from 1867. Previously, there had been an idea to use the fund to decorate the inside of the building, but now a proposal was made to allocate it for plot planning and gardening by the house. There was a lot of discussion about the proposal in the parliament, and members of parliament shared their experiences with gardening. Alþingi finally agreed to spend 1,500 krónur for construction in the park and to have the President of Parliament oversee the work. The park is still almost unchanged from its original layout.