34-38 Gawler St | The Institute (Town Hall)
34-38 Gawler St, 1874 The Institute (Town Hall) September 10, 1875 was a gala day for Mount Barker. The occasion was the opening of the Mount Barker Institute, which had been completed after more than twenty years of effort and aspiration. The Courier reported that “The edifice now that it is completed is an ornament to the […]
30-32 Gawler St | Mount Barker Hotel
30-32 Gawler St, Mount Barker Hotel This hotel was first licensed in 1849. This makes it the oldest surviving hotel Mount Barker, and also the oldest surviving building in Gawler Street, although it has been much altered over the years. It began as a single-storey cottage hotel called the “Scotch Thistle Inn,” built by the […]
31 Gawler St | Daw’s Butcher Shop (Mane)
31 Gawler St, Daw’s Butcher Shop (Mane) Before a regular butcher’s premises had been established in the town, Mount Barker pioneer Duncan Macfarlane supplied mutton from his sheep run. His four-roomed stone and brick house, in the area of what is now Kia Ora Street, was the first constructed in Mount Barker, and one of […]
23-23a Gawler St | Commercial Bank (Simply Style and Shoex)
23-23a Gawler St, Commercial Bank (Simply Style and Shoex) This site was originally occupied by cabinetmaker Simeon Moss (1821-1903), who emigrated from England in 1850 with his wife Anne (née Thompson, 1826-1886). The following year he paid £30 to acquire this site for his furniture business. He later converted it to a general store and […]
16 Gawler St | Bank of Australasia (ANZ Bank)
16 Gawler St, Bank of Australasia (ANZ Bank) The Bank of Australasia operated from 1835 to 1951, when it merged with the Union Bank of Australia to form ANZ. Its first Adelaide branch opened in 1839, but it was not until 1881 that a branch opened in Mount Barker. This temporarily operated at von Doussa’s […]
15 Gawler St/ 17 Walker St | Richardson’s Corner (Grounds for Coffee)
15 Gawler St/ 17 Walker St, Richardson’s Corner (Grounds for Coffee) This shop is one of the earliest in Gawler Street. The site used to be known as “Richardson’s Corner,” after the Richardson family who ran a chemist shop here for over fifty years. Pharmacist Joseph Bull (1817-1857) first established a chemist shop at this […]
12-14 Gawler St | Tinsmiths’ Workshop (Bank SA)
12-14 Gawler St Tinsmiths’ Workshop (Bank SA) Tinsmiths were amongst the first businesses to set up in Gawler Street, and this site was continuously occupied by tinsmiths for more than fifty years. In the mid-nineteenth century most of the goods that were consumed in Mount Barker were produced on-site by foundries, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, tailors, carpenters, […]
10 Gawler St | Harrowfield’s Cottage (Cloth and Bale)
10 Gawler St, Harrowfield’s Cottage (Cloth and Bale) For much of its long history this cottage has been used as a residence, with a succession of individuals and families either owning or leasing it. John Rundle (1791-1874) was a Cornish farmer, cattle-trader and butcher. He and his family were among the earliest arrivals in the […]
05 Gawler St | Millie’s Bakery (Lobethal Bakery)
5 Gawler St, Millie’s Bakery (Lobethal Bakery) “Millie’s Bakery” was a Mount Barker institution for more than forty years, but the building was not always a bakery, and “Millie” was not a baker. The shop was built in about 1873 as a residence for the Daniel family, who conducted a blacksmith business on the adjacent corner. […]
017 Adelaide Road | Auchendarroch
17 Adelaide Road, Auchendarroch The mansion that is today “Auchendarroch” started out as the Oakfield Hotel, a two-storey establishment with eight main rooms, built for proprietor Lachlan Macfarlan (1806-1892) in 1860. Macfarlan had arrived in Sydney from Scotland in 1839, and a year later overlanded a flock of sheep to South Australia for Mount Barker landowner […]