60 Gawler St, Old Police Station
In the original plans for the town of Mount Barker two blocks of land in the centre of the town were set aside. One was reserved for the Post Office and Police Station, and the second was for the use of the Church. This is the site of the original police station and courthouse built in the 1840s. The police station doubled as accommodation for the police and their families. The first police officer in charge of the district was William Searcy.
According to the Mount Barker Local History Centre,
Frequent patrols and inspections were made by the mounted police in the sparsely populated area that extended as far afield as Encounter Bay, Lobethal and the Lower Murray River. The mounted police would journey to Goolwa and cross the River Murray by swimming the horses over. After the inspection of the Coorong was completed they would swim the horses back across the River Murray at Milang.
A separate Court House was built in Cameron Street in the 1840s and replaced with an updated version near this site in Hutchinson Street in 1865. Early magistrates included Captain Francis Day Davison (1799-1861), who lived at Blakiston, and Captain George Frederick Dashwood (1806-1881). Special Magistrates would come up from Adelaide, but for at least fifty years many of Mount Barker’s prominent citizens – farmers, shopkeepers and tradesmen – served as Justices of the Peace, and were required to resolve disputes and sit in judgment over the infractions of their neighbours. These included Duncan Macfarlane, John Dunn, Frederick May, Thomas Paltridge, Adam W. Richardson, Richard Daniel, Thomas H. Stephenson, James T. Williams and Octavius Weld.
The police building now on this site was erected in 1875 along with two sets of cells, which still survive. There is also a two-storey stable-block that reputedly dates from 1848, which would make it the oldest intact stone building in Mount Barker (although we note that tenders for the construction of new stables were invited in 1859).
The Mount Barker Heritage Survey of 2004 deals extensively with this police station site:
The first stone building to be constructed on Gawler Street was the police station of 1840. This building, which apparently faced towards McLaren Street, was then extended in 1852. There were also stone stables constructed to the rear in 1848. The earliest located photograph of the police station shows only a corner of a stone building behind the Post Office. When the new station building was constructed in 1875, some of this earlier stone building was retained as the south-eastern corner of the new building. The two pairs of cells would also have been constructed in 1875. The station was again extended in 1917. In c1950s, a new station building was constructed next door. . . The surviving buildings are now the oldest police complex in South Australia, and are also excellent representatives of the early establishment and development of policing in South Australia.
The report also notes the architecture of the complex:
All buildings are constructed of local stone with red-brick chimneys, rendered dressings to the station, cgi [corrugated iron] roofs, and original timber frames to openings, timber doors and windows. The station also has classical detailing including rendered dressings to windows (with projecting keystones) and corners, paired eaves brackets, plinth, and projecting string course, and a concave cgi verandah with timber posts.
The most recent Mount Barker Police Station was opened next door, at 64 Gawler Street, in 2006.
The photo below shows the police station in 1927. On the right is the “new” Post Office, opened 1914 (click to enlarge).
