Richmond Bridge

Richmond Bridge is a lasting symbol of Tasmania’s convict heritage. The sandstone arches of Australia’s oldest known large stone arch bridge have spanned Tasmania’s Coal River since its completion in 1825. Built by convict labour, the Richmond Bridge reminds us of the forced migration that contributed to the development of Australian society. The Coal River district was first explored by Europeans in 1803; in 1819 Macquarie granted Lieutenant-Governor Sorrell land at ‘the crossing point of the Coal River’.  As settlement and cultivation of Richmond developed (from about 1820 it was known as ‘the granary of Australia’ and all available land in the district was being cultivated with wheat commanding high prices), increased road traffic made a bridge over the Coal River a necessity.

The crossing place where the wagons could ford the river, south of where the bridge now stands, was frequently flooded in winter and spring, creating delays or posing a risk of carts and stock being washed away. By 1820 road construction to Richmond had commenced, following a route south, through Cambridge.  The necessity for a bridge was pointed out (it is claimed) by the Royal Commissioner John Thomas Bigge when he visited in 1820 as part of his Commission of Inquiry on the state of Agriculture and Trade.  (So, initially, the bridge was known as Bigge’s Bridge.)

The Coal River was forded at what became Richmond, this being the nearest convenient crossing point from where the river narrowed about a kilometer upstream of the tidal flow.  The relatively low height of the river escarpment at this point provided an ideal approach for a bridge and thus the bridge later provided a focus for town development.

Built by convict labour it was probably under the superintendence of Major Bell of the 49th Regiment, who was Acting Engineer and Inspector of Public Works, and William Wilson, who was superintendent of Stonemasons.  David Lambe, Colonial Architect, visited the site before it was completed.

The attribution of the designer is not certain – both Thomas Bell and David Lambe have been attributed with the design but it seems more likely that it was Bell who had six years experience as Acting Colonial Engineer and overseer of several building constructions rather than Lambe who would have had to design the bridge as a twenty year old just arrived from England, site unseen, and at least eight months before his own appointment as Colonial Architect by the Lieutenant-Governor, and indeed the latter’s own appointment.
 The building of the bridge meant that heavy traffic was able to proceed without delay between Hobart and the East Coast, and Tasman Peninsula, when the Coal River was in flood, though the two Pittwater ferries still continued to operate for people.

The Hobart Town Gazette of 13 December 1823 announced that the first stone had been laid (11 December 1823) in the presence of James Gordon and George Western Gunning and ‘a number of the respectable settlers of the vicinity’.  The construction of the bridge and the establishment of the Richmond township are closely linked events.  Within two months of the bridge work starting, the township of Richmond was named.
 The bridge was opened in 1825.  This early date ensures that it is the oldest, existing, Australian bridge.

The bridge served to consolidate Richmond as a focus for commercial and institutional development.  The township developed to the south-west of the new works, being along the road to Kangaroo Point where a ferry/punt connected with Hobart.  The early town layout is shown on two undated plans from the mid-1820’s.  The first buildings constructed in the new town were part of the police and penal systems – a court house, gaol, gaoler’s quarters and residence for the Police Magistrate.  Several private houses soon appeared and within ten years two inns were catering for local trade.

It is widely recognised across the nation featuring in numerous publications, tourist and historic literature and in the work of major Australian artists. Images of Richmond Bridge have also appeared on postage stamps.
The fame of the bridge has magnified the status of Richmond far beyond its size and population. The bridge and its surrounds draw almost two hundred thousand visitors annually to Richmond to experience the idyllic setting with its connections to the beauty of a past era.

Australia’s oldest bridge is said to be haunted by the ghost of George Grover, a flagellator supposedly thrown off the bridge by the convicts he tortured during its construction. Grover was transported to Van Diemen’s Land in 1825 for stealing and by 1829 records show him as the Flagellator at Richmond. His death in early March 1832 resulted in an inquest concluding that he had laid down whilst drunk and “fallen or was pushed” from the parapet of the bridge, 27 feet in height.” Grover’s ghost is said to appear on the bridge at certain times”.

The ghost of a large black and white dog, sometimes called ‘Grover’s Dog’, is also seen on the bridge. One lady reports it appearing at her side on several occasions as she walked the bridge at night. It would walk alongside her from one end to the other, and then disappear as quickly as it had come.

Main Text & Information Source

Australian Heritage Database

Lenna Mansion

Alexander McGregor, the builder of Lenna, was a boy of 10 years when he arrived on 28 February, 1831 in Hobart Town, Van Dieman’s Land, on the ship ‘Drummore’ with his family. Born in Paisley Scotland, he grew up to be a canny Scot, shrewd, practical and hard working.
With his brother John, he learned the ship building trade and took over the Domain shipyard which later was solely run by John. Alexander became more interested in business and flourished as a merchant trading from his offices and warehouses on the corner of Elizabeth Street and Lords place, the present site of the Hobart Post Office.

Alexander built the largest fleet of sailing ships individually owned south of the Equator, including whalers, barques, schooners and a brigantine. The Hobart-built ships were considered superior in all ways to many of the same type built elsewhere. As the local hardwood was an ideal timber and vessels built from it were extremely hardy, the ‘blue gum’ clippers became famous throughout the world. Alexander sailed his ships under his blue and white McGregor gridiron flag, and one of the original flags is on display today in the Chandelier Lounge Bar.

The brother’s merchant and shipbuilding businesses continued to grow. With the plentiful supply of whales and as the Windjammers were the only link with the rest of the world in the early 1800’s, Hobart Town became the centre of a big ship building and whaling industry.

The site of Lenna was originally owned by Captain James Bayley. He subsequently sold the property to Alexander McGregor who was his partner in the whaling trade and whose daughter, Miss Harriett Bayley, became McGregor’s first wife. The most famous of his ships and his favourite was the ‘Harriett McGregor’.

“Lenna” is the Tasmanian Aboriginal word for “house” or “hut”. Lenna was erected in stages, work on the first section facing McGregor Street (then called Cross Street) was started in 1874 and incorporated the original Bayley house, now the hotel kitchens. The next section was added in 1880. Built of local sandstone and handmade bricks, the Italianate style building is on the Heritage Register and is a historical Hobart landmark mansion.

Behind Lenna and across the park, remains the cottage of the original Battery Point signal station. The lookout on top of Lenna (McGregor’s Lookout) also had a semaphore for signalling ships in the Derwent River. One of Alexander McGregor’s main trade routes was between London and Hobart and when his ship was some 80 days out of London, having sailed via The Horn, he would commence his vigil in this lookout, telescope to eye, watching for her to appear down the channel. Early photographs, prints and paintings of Alexander McGregor’s ships are throughout the hotel. An original oil painting of the barque ‘Harriet McGregor’ painted in 1878 is a feature of the collection.

In 1914, Lenna was purchased by the late Sir Alfred Ashbolt. Many older Hobart residents have happy memories of parties held in the ground floor “drawing room”, now the Chandelier Lounge. The original gas-lit crystal chandelier still hangs in this room. The light was converted to electricity during the Ashbolt’s ownership. The reception room was the “morning room”, and the small room adjacent to the dining room was a study. The eastern end of the dining room was the original dining room, and the western end, a day nursery. On the first floor, the smaller of the function rooms was the main bedroom, and the dressing room off it is now a bar. The seven attic rooms on the second floor were servant’s quarters, housing a cook, housemaid, parlour maid, chauffeur, “useful maid”, a nurse and a gardener.

While Sir Alfred Ashbolt was in London serving as Tasmania’s Agent General, the house was leased and used as a guest house for some years by Mrs Cremmer. From 1942 to 1971, the house was owned by Mr and Mrs A.E (Jack) Boyes and family who had planned to convert it to a hotel, but after Mr Boyes’ death it was divided into three apartments and remained thus until 1971.

In 1971, Innkeepers Limited purchased the property and in 1973, work commenced on the new wing of Lenna. The whole concept has been to blend the charm of old Lenna with the new building, combining all of the comforts of a first class hotel.

The original fountain, which stood in front of the first residence on the site, has been installed in a new setting. A tower at the top of Lenna was used to look out for the safe arrival of Alexander’s ships. Today, guests can take great delight in climbing the stairs to the McGregor Lookout to enjoy the panoramic view of Hobart and feel a sense of history… An absolutely magnificently preserved mansion from a bygone era.

Text & Information Source: Lenna Website - http://www.lenna.com.au/

Alexander McGregor Biography

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mcgregor-alexander-4095

Hobart Ordnance Store

One of the earliest tangible traces of ‘Ordnance’ in Australia was the existence of an Ordnance store located on the Derwent River in Hobart Town which was constructed in 1806. The Mulgrave Battery was later constructed in 1818 was linked with an underground passage with that Ordnance store which enabled ammunition to be fed directly to the battery site. The need for a permanent Ordnance store was recognized and authorized in 1832, but a more suitable site away from the Mulgrave Battery was needed.

In 1833, John Lee Archer, one of Australia's most renowned early colonial architects, was commissioned to design new buildings to house the Ordnance stores on Castray Esplanade.  The Ordnance stores would house all government supplies, both military and convict. With the completion of a new Government wharf in 1834 an adjacent site was chosen for the Ordnance facility and the foundations for the new Ordnance building was marked out. Tenders were let in 1836 and hundreds of convicts (housed in hulks moored at New Wharf) quarried the cliffs behind Salamanca, cut the stone and built the Ordnance stores on Castray Esplanade with work being completed in 1838 at a total cost of three and a half thousand pounds.

The completed building was comprised of three stories and was constructed in fine sandstone. The Ordnance Department and the Army occupied this sandstone facility for some 120 years before passing over the property to the Post Master General’s Department in 1956. The sale of the property by the Department of the Army occurred following transfer of the Tasmanian Ordnance Depot to the new and expanded facilities at Dowsing Point. The transfer price for the property realized a mere fourteen thousand eight hundred pounds being for the stores building, the property site and the married quarter cottage.

The Ordnance buildings have now been classified under the Battery Point Planning Scheme as a special purpose building of historical interest and natural beauty.  Today, the storehouses have been converted into a collection of restaurants, cafes, art galleries and studios, specialty shops and residences.

Text & Information sourced from Australian Heritage Database & Salamanca Wharf Hotel website

Parliament House, Hobart

The island of Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land) was claimed and subsequently settled by Great Britain in 1803. Initially, it was administered by the Governor of New South Wales, as part of that British Colony. In 1825 Tasmania became an independent British colony, administered separately from New South Wales, and the Legislative Council was formed as an appointed six man body to advise the Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land who had sole governance of the colony.

The council initially held their meetings in a room adjacent to the old Government House that was located near to the present site of Franklin Square. Parliament House was originally designed as the Customs House in colonial Georgian architecture style by skilled convict architect John Lee Archer in 1830. The site for the building had originally been a market, but had been converted into timber yards in the 1820s. The site was reserved in 1832 for the building of a customs house due to its close location to the wharves of Sullivans Cove (the building was originally closer to the water's edge than it is today following further reclamation).

Before reclamation of the grounds began in 1832 the site was close to the water so it was an obvious location for the customs operations. (One of the prints in the Parliamentary Museum gives a clear illustration of how close the building was to the water.) Between 1832 and 1840 golden honey colored sandstone was quarried from locations in the Queens Domain and Salamanca Place (now the site of Salamanca Square), and a small railway was constructed to ferry the blocks to the construction site.

Construction began in on 5 January 1835, and using mostly convict labour, the basement level had been completed by March 1836. By 1838 the second story had been added and the building was ready for staff of the Customs Department to move into on 1 September 1840. By 1841 the building was fully operational as the colony's customs house. At that time, the Legislative Council, which had been formed in 1825, was meeting in a room adjacent to the old Government House, but the location was less than adequate for such meetings. It was proposed that the meetings should be held in the spacious new 'Long Room' of the Customs House, and 19 June 1841, the first Legislative Council meeting was held within the building.

In 1845 the original markets upon the reclaimed land were removed and replaced by timber yards. (Ironically, adjacent to this area is now the site of Tasmania's most significant and popular market, the weekly Salamanca Market.). In 1850 the British Parliament enacted the Australian Colonies Government Act, which gave Van Diemen's Land the right to elect its first representative government. The size of the Legislative Council was increased from six to 24. Eight members were appointed by the Governor, and 16 were elected by property owners. The new Legislative Council met for the first time in 1852, and by 1854 they had passed the Tasmanian Constitution Act, granting Van Diemen's Land responsible self-government and a new parliament.

In 1855 Queen Victoria granted Royal Assent and Van Diemen's Land became a self-governing British Colony. The following year, 1856, one of the new parliament's first acts was to change the name of the colony from Van Diemen's Land to Tasmania. In April 1856 renovations began to the Customs House to allow it to accommodate the new parliament, and on 2 December 1856 the first sessions of parliament were held, with the new House of Assembly sitting in the Long Room, and the Legislative Council moved to their new chamber at the opposite end of the building.

The Customs Department finally moved out of the building altogether in 1904, moving to a new location in Davey Street next to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, leaving the building be solely occupied by the Parliament of Tasmania. Between 1938 and 1940 Parliament House was again renovated to construct a new chamber for the House of Assembly, and convert the Long Room, where they had been meeting for the previous 82 years, into a Member's Lounge.

The new House of Assembly Chamber was formally opened on 14 May 1940, whilst Tasmania was involved in Australia's World War II commitments. In December 1940 extensions were also added to the Legislative Council Chamber to create the Murray Street wing. Further alterations were made to the building beginning in 1977. Member's offices, a Hansard office, Parliamentary Library and Museum, committee rooms, a dining room, reception area, interview rooms and other additional facilities were added, and a formal re-opening was held on 16 April 1980. The most recent alterations began in 1998 and are currently still underway and are in the form of conservation work, and restoration of sections of the building to try and revert it to its original character.

Parliament House is one of the clearest examples of how Archer designed his work to have a sense of strength and permanence. Whilst significant renovations to the interior have taken place, and the slate roof was removed and replaced with tiles, the façade still remains today almost exactly how it was first constructed. Unlike a lot of Archer's penal projects, which have since been demolished, Parliament House is still occupied today by the Parliament of Tasmania. For this reason alone it is one of, if not the most significant project of Archer's entire career.

Main Text & Information Sources.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_House,_Hobart

&

Tasmanian Parliament Website: http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/