What exactly were the parks that the Buddha spent time in? Whe I read the Pali Canon the BUddha seems to spend a lot of his time in parks in various locations. Often in the suttas these 'parks' are mentioned in the introduction to the text. For instance the Alagaddupama Sutta (The Water-Snake Simile) begins


  I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying in
  Savatthi, at Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's park


I've even read park keepers being mentioned in some sutta I've read. This as always struck me as achronistic. The notion of parks where the Buddha can spend time seems odd. If they were pieces of land owned by Kings and nobility I would have expected the translation to be rendered private gardens or the like. To me the word park gives the impression of some kind of public or communal ownership.

So what were the parks that existed 2500 years ago in India. Were there really 
pieces of land with some kind of common ownership that anyone could go to. Is it a translation issue and there are other possible translations to this that don't give the impression of a communal kind of ownership? Is it just me that finds this odd?
Using Google to find a Pali version of the Alagaddupama Sutta , it starts,

Evaṃ me sutaṃ: ekaṃ samayaṃ bhagavā sāvatthiyaṃ viharati jetavane anāthapiṇḍikassa ārāme.

My first guess was that ārāme is the word you're looking to translate (because it's next to the word &quot;anāthapiṇḍikassa&quot;).
Various online Pali dictionaries don't return a result when I try to look it up, but I guessed the reason for that is that ārāme is probably a (grammatical) declension of the word instead of the root.
Using this Criticial Pali Dictionary to search for ārām* (note using * &quot;Truncation sign&quot;) returns 160 words. Using the 'Next' button to scroll down until the words begin with ārām (i.e. the right accents over the vowels) finds this definition ...

2ārāma, m. [ts.], a place of pleasure i. e. a
pleasure grove, garden, or park in a monastery, or
(as pars pro toto) a monastery itself (see SBE XIII
p. 23, note 2; Geiger, Culture Â§Â§81, 175, 196);

... with a long list of references to places where the word is used.
In English a 'Park' isn't necessarily a municipal, public park: I imagine it might be a like a garden, but perhaps wilder (not all lawn and flower-beds), or a private wood. I expect it's reserved in some way (reserved for public use, or reserved for private use), not used for agriculture etc.
Similar/related/compound Pali words suggest it's used as a synonym for 'monastery', for example,

ārāma-gata, mfn., having gone to or being in a monastery
ārāma-dāna, n., giving of an ārāma

(not too surprising when monks dwell in a 'forest' instead of as 'householders').
It's also used in contexts which suggest it means delight and pleasure:

1ārāma, m. [ts.], delight, pleasure
ārāma-ramma, m(n)., the delightful, charming
or beautiful abode of a monastery

I recommend you browse the other related compound words to see other ways in which it's used; for example some of the less common words include

ārāma-(p)patta, mfn., who has reached the park
ārāma-sīla, mfn., having the habit of going to a park