Bridging the gap

Oops! I've been a little distracted by other things for the past few weeks, and this Daily Photo Blog has been not so daily. But I'm still here, and to - ahem - 'bridge the gap', here's a photo of Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, over Lake Burley Griffin:

The current bridge is the fourth one on this site. It was completed in late 1963, and connects Civic - the commercial centre of Canberra - with Parliament House. It consists of two separate carriageways, each with three traffic lanes.

Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies said, in October 1964 at the inauguration ceremony for the new Lake Burley Griffin, that the bridge was ‘the finest building in the National Capital’. Not quite sure what that says about the rest of Canberra's architecture at the time ...

Japanese Cherry trees

The inscription pretty much explains it (in English below). On the north side of Lake Burley Griffin, near Commonwealth Avenue Bridge.

A Prime Ministerial walk

 

I went for a wander around the lake while yesterday's birthday party was in process, and came across this fellow also out for a stroll. Apparently he's quite new, and there's no plaque announcing his identity, which had a few passers-by a little confused. But if you know anything about Australian politics, you'd have to recognise Sir Robert Gordon (Bob) Menzies, Prime Minister from 1939 to 1941 and from 1949 to 1966 - the longest serving PM in our history.

Peeking through the window

If you sneak down the narrow alley between the weatherboard lolly shop and ice-cream parlour and the corrugated iron National Theatre in Braidwood, you can peek through one of the dusty windows near the back of the theatre ...

National Theatre, Braidwood

The National Theatre, in Wallace Street, is now the Tourist Information Centre and Community Centre for Braidwood. It was originally built as a picture theatre and roller skating rink.

Salvation Jane

This is Echium plantagineum, better known (depending on where in Australia you come from) as either Salvation Jane or Paterson's Curse, and it originally hails from the Mediterranean region. The seeds were first brought to Australia from Europe in the 1880s, to be added to the garden of Jane Paterson, who lived near Albury.  From there it started spreading, and it is now a common weed in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory, parts of South Australia, southern Queensland and south western Western Australia. And it's still spreading.

It's very pretty, with masses of purplish-blue flowers forming carpets across entire paddocks after rain. But it can also be deadly. Horses and pigs are particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects it has on the liver. Cattle and sheep are more resistant, and in fact it has carried stock through bad periods of drought in South Australia (and that's where the name Salvation Jane is most widely used), but too much of it in their diet can make even these animals very sick.

Just a dirt track

It may just look like a muddy track around the fringes of the suburbs, but this particular dirt track is a little more significant than most. This is part of the Bicentennial National Trail. The trail is actually 5330 km long, from far north Queensland down to Victoria, and it even has its own website! The trail began with an idea of a horse trail linking the stock routes along the Great Dividing Range, and developed into a $300 000 Bicentennial project, opened in 1988.

The trail is used by all sorts of people - for short walks or long treks on foot or horse, by cyclists and by people accessing bush camping areas, fishing spots and more. There are easy stretches like this one between the houses on the edge of Spence, Fraser and Dunlop, and rugged parts through national parks. What you can't take on the trail is your dog (parts of the trail go through farmland where there may be baits for wild dogs and foxes) or any sort of motorised vehicle - so leave your 4WD and trailbike at home.

The website has lots of information about the trail, its history, and how you can help maintain it, as well as maps and details of the guidebooks available if you wanted to follow all or part of the trail.

The man with the donkey

This bronze sculpture, by Peter Corlett, stands to the west of the Australian War Memorial. It is Simpson and his donkey, 1915. Private John Simpson (born John Simpson Kirkpatrick in Britain) enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in August 1914. He landed at Gallipoli on that fateful day - April 25, 1915 - and worked as a stretcher bearer, using a donkey brought in to carry water to instead carry wounded men back to ANZAC Cove. On May 19, less than a month later, and while carrying two injured men, he was killed by machine gun fire.

You can read more about Simpson's story in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Resting place

There were only ever three churchyard burial grounds in the ACT (the others are at Weetangera and St John's, Reid). These days people are buried in large multi-denominational cemeteries, and previously internments were in rough bush graves or small private cemeteries on properties.

The individual markers here are long gone, but the names of 18 people buried in the St Paul's Ginninderra burial ground are commemorated on a plaque, erected by the Southwell Family Society in 1995. There were probably more burials in the area, but there's no record of them.

[From the ACT Heritage Register]

Burials in St Paul's Burial Ground, Ginninderra
(References: Ferret & Murdock 1983; Canberra & District Historical Society files; Commemorative Plaque
on site, St Paul's Burial Ground; Cope, 2006)

Known European burials whose names appear on commemorative plaque:

EDGE, Ralph
Abode: Round Hill, Ginninderra
Died: 9th Sep 1872
Buried: 11th Sep 1872
Age: 80 years
Ceremony performed by Rev. Pierce Galliard Smith [*Rector of St John's]

SMITH, Anne
Abode: Ginninderra Creek
Died 24th Jun 1873
Buried: 26th Jun 1873
Age: 27 years
Ceremony performed by Rev. Pierce Galliard Smith
[*Died in childbirth; buried close to the church building; aunt of Marian Smith.]

GROCOTT, Robert [*labourer]
Abode: Charnwood
Died: 14th Jul 1874
Buried: 16th Jul 1874
Age: 79 years
Ceremony performed by Rev. Pierce Galliard Smith

GROCOTT, Hannah, Maria
Abode: Budellick, Ginninderra
Died: 6th Mar 1877
Buried: 7th Mar 1877
Age: 91 years
Ceremony performed by Rev. Pierce Galliard Smith

TINSLEY, Thomas
26th Dec 1881
Occupation: Shepherd

CAMERON, Janet Alexandria
3rd Nov 1883
Age: 2 years 8 months
Daughter of Charles & Margaret Cameron

CAMERON, ANN
17th May 1883
Age 79 years
Wife of Donald Cameron

CAMERON, Donald
1st Jul 1883
Age: 52 years
Husband of Elizabeth McDonald

WELLS, Charlotte
10th Apr 1884
Age: 64 years
Wife of Thomas

CAMERON, Elizabeth
22nd Jun 1885
Age: 42 years
Wife of Donald Cameron

BOLTON, Francis James
21st Jul 1885
Age: 8 months
Son of Joseph & Mary Griffith

CAMERON, Alexander
8th Mar 1886
Age: 51 years
Husband of Mary Ann Ryan

SUMNER, William
11th Oct 1886
Age 76

HOLLIGAN, Thomas
Abode: Ginninderra
Died: 25th Oct 1887
Buried: 29th Oct 1887
Age 74 years
Ceremony performed by Rev. Pierce Galliard Smith
[*Gored to death by a bull]

JONES, Thomas
Abode: Ginninderra
Died 9th Jun 1888
Buried: 11th Jun 1888
Age; 75 years
Profession: lawyer [*sawyer]
Ceremony performed by Rev. Pierce Galliard Smith

MORRIS, Henry
Abode: Hall
Died: 23rd Mar 1894
Buried: 25th Mar 1894
Age: 79 years
Profession: Shoemaker
[*Service read by A.M. Grant]

MORRIS, Lucy Ellen
Abode: Hall
Died: 22nd Sep 1898
Buried: 23rd Sep 1898
Age: 29 years
Service read by A.M. Grant [*Rev. P. Presswell]

STEAR, Charlotte Eliza
Abode: Majura
Died: 19th Sep 1900
Buried: 21st Sep 1900
Age: 2 years
Drowned in a well near her home
Ceremony performed by Rev. Pierce Galliard Smith

Others believed to be buried in St Paul's Burial Ground:

RYAN, (names unknown)
Buried: 4th Sep 1865
Father: Michael Ryan
Mother: Margaret Warren

MCPHEE, Hugh
1878
Occupation: Schoolteacher

DONALD, Sandy
1884

PLUMMER, William
18th May 1886
Age; 33
Son of Levi & Francis Guttridge

MCPHERSON, Jane Elizabeth [*MacPherson]
Died: 8th Jul 1886
Age: 7 years
[*Died at Wallaroo. Research carried out by Mr. Keith Kilby indicated that there were three children in the MacPherson family who died about the same time – two were buried underneath a tree in the garden of their home and the other in the Ginninderra cemetery.]

O'BRIEN, Bridget
Buried: 24th Jul 1886
Father: John O'Brien
Mother: Jane Daley

WALL, Agnes
Buried: 12 April 1883
Age: 64

Aborigines:
Two unknown Aboriginal people are believed to have been buried in or in the vicinity of the lower corner
of the block.

[* Information from The History of the Anglican Church in Ginninderra, 1821-1983, by Margaret Ferrett and Jenifer Murdock]

St Paul's Ginninderra, Evatt

Lyall Gillespie Collection

These photos are from the new (2010) sign on the site of the old St Paul's Anglican Church and burial ground site in Evatt. The sign gives a brief history of the church and site. The drawing below is dated 1926, so the photo must have been earlier than that, but clearly the church was already disused, and probably had been for some years, so possibly it was taken in the 1910s or early 20s. Perhaps the building was used as some sort of farm storage once it had started to deteriorate - there seems to be a cart in the drawing below.

Sketch of St Paul's Church, Ginninderra, by Eireen Mort

What lies beneath

On the corner of Copland Drive and Moynihan Street, Evatt, is what seems to be a vacant block of land. There's not much there - a few poplar trees, some more established than others, a few young eucalypts around the fence, and a lot of sparse, tussocky, weedy grass with a few blue and pink patches of tiny flowers. The only thing that you might find intriguing is the 'Historic Cemetery' sign along the Copland Drive edge.

I've been meaning to find out about it for ages, and I finally had the chance this weekend.

On 12 May 1861, St Paul's Church of England was opened on this site. At the time, it was part of Ginninderra Station, owned by the Campbell family. If you've been following this blog for a while, you might remember a park - Glebe Park - in the city, which was previously land donated to the Church of England to help support the rector of St John's, Reid. Well, there were three such parcels of land donated by the Campbells as glebes, and this what remains of one of them. The glebe consisted of 200 acres - 1 acre for a church, 2 acres for a burial ground, and the remainder to be leased to tenant farmers to provide an income for the church for maintenance and support.

St Paul's was a small rural church - 5m x 9m, with a tiny porch and a bell-cote. It was partly built in slab and weatherboard, and partly in lath and plaster, with a shingle roof and Gothic windows. The type of construction meant it needed constant maintenance.

From April 1862, the building also functioned as a school. The school attendance fluctuated, as was often the case in rural communities when children were required to help on the farm at times, and it could also be difficult to cross Ginninderra Creek in times of heavy rain. By 1870, the numbers had fallen to below 7, and the school closed.

In 1882, the village of Hall was established and became much more important to the local community than Ginninderra. St Paul's was still used until 1900, but in 1904 it was severely damaged  in a storm and left to deteriorate.

The suburb of Evatt was established in the 1970s, and part of the old burial ground was lost under newly constructed roads. Many of the old grave markers were made of timber, and had deteriorated and disappeared, and there was no record of the actual plots. This space was used as a construction parking area during the suburb's development.

A new parish of St Paul's Ginninderra was established in 1981, and the block was designated for a new church building. however, the parishioners decided not to go ahead with this, and initially met in the primary school at Melba, and more recently in the Spence primary school (which is no longer used as a school, and has a number of tenants apart from the church).

Reference: Most of the historical information given here is from the ACT Heritage Register.

Canberra City Uniting Church

The Canberra City Uniting Church, Northbourne Avenue. The current church buildings were opened in 1988, but the site has been used for services since about 1940. Until 1977 it was Congregational Church, becoming the Uniting Church when the Congregationalists, Methodists and some Presbyterians in Australia decided to combine. The new buildings contain, as well as the church itself, church offices, conference facilities, commercial office space and the Early Morning Centre, which provides services to the community, especially homeless people living on the city streets.

There is an information leaflet about the church's history and design features on the church website.

St Ninian's, Lyneham

 

Not all of Canberra is modern public art and Brutalist concrete 1980s buildings. St Ninian's Uniting Church in Lyneham is an example of Canberra's early European settlement. Opened in 1873 as the district's second permanent church building (after St John's Church of England at Reid), it replaced an earlier (1862) slab and bark building used by the Scottish Presbyterian settlers. The stone was quarried locally - from Black Mountain - and the original building was a simple rectangle with two arched windows down each side. The church was extended in 1901, using the same stone and adding another arched window on each side, but attendances declined for several reasons, and the building was closed in 1920.

 

For over 20 years the building served as a hay barn, and then was completely abandoned and left to decay. But in 1941 it caught the attention of the minister of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Canberra, and he was instrumental in its restoration and reopening in 1942, under the new name of St Ninian's.

 

A church hall was added in 1961, and there were further extensions in 1978-79 (using Black Mountain stone), after St Ninian's had become part of the Uniting Church in Australia (formed by Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches) in 1977. For those interested, there's more information on the church website and in the 2011 ACT Heritage Notice.

Gnabra

Part of the Gnabra and Kembery buildings on Genge Street, Civic. 'Gnabra' and 'Kembery' are both variants on the Aboriginal word for this region, which eventually became 'Canberra'. There's a really interesting discussion about the development and Anglicising of Aboriginal words for place names in Aboriginal Placenames: Naming and renaming the Australian landscape (see page 156 for the Gnabra and Kemberry/Canbery reference).

RAAF Memorial Grove

If you turn to the right from the propeller in yesterday's photo, your eye wanders down a path towards a sandstone cairn, through the RAAF Memorial Grove. WWII Royal Australian Air Force veterans started the grove in 1954. The cairn came later, but it wasn't until 2002 that the grove was formally consecrated.

It was starting to rain when we dropped in, but hopefully I'll get back there soon and have a proper look at the memorial plaques along the path.

RAAF propeller

The Dowty-Rotol propeller symbolises, according to the plaque, the Royal Australian Air Force's operational and heritage links with the national capital, and the supporting structure reflects the strength of its people.

This propeller is located just off the Federal Highway near the ACT-NSW border, as you approach from the Sydney side (north). It's in the Hughie Edwards VC (Victoria Cross) Rest Area, one of a series of rest areas along the Remembrance Driveway dotted along the Hume and Federal Highways between Sydney and Canberra.

Time capsule

Tucked away under the trees in Commonwealth Park is this small stone pyramid. The plaque at the top has the familiar Autralian Bicentennial logo (1788-1988), and the following words:

To celebrate

Australia Day in the Bicentennial Year

a Time Capsule was placed beneath this cairn

on

January 26, 1988

by

The Canberra Times

Australia Day in the National Capital

and the

National Capital Development Commission

The Time Capsule is to be opened

in the year 2088.

Apparently there's no official record of exactly what is in the 1.5 metre glass capsule, sealed with argon gas and buried in the earth, but I did find reference to it containing a letter from the then-Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, a short history of The Canberra Times newspaper, and numerous objects and photographs submitted by the people of Canberra.

The road into Braidwood

What a difference seven weeks can make! This is the road into Braidwood (or out in our case), on the Canberra side. It's lined with trees which were completely bare in mid-September (below) but covered in green again by last weekend. It's not the exact same piece of road, but along the same stretch.

The avenue of Lombardy and Golden poplars was planted in 1936 at the northern entrance to town to celebrate the 25th year of King George V's reign.

Granite store, Braidwood

On the corner of Duncan and Wallace Streets in Braidwood is this gorgeous granite store built by stonemason Terence McGrath. It was built in 1870, and has served as a produce store, butcher and saddler premises. The verandah upstairs was added in the 1890s.

Braidwood Hotel

The Braidwood Hotel, in Wallace Street. Constructed in 1859 during the gold rush, this is the oldest still-licensed pub in town. Apparently it was one of the grandest hotels in the region, with a ballroom on the first floor and attic accommodation on the second floor, as well as the public rooms and bars.

The hotel has had some brushes with fame (and infamy!) - it was featured in the 1987 film The Year My Voice Broke, and in Flirting ( with Noah Taylor, Thandie Newton and Nicole Kidman) in 1992. Mick Jagger dropped in during the filming of Ned Kelly (1970), and actor Geoffrey Rush and opera star Dame Joan Sutherland both attended the break-up party in the pub's courtyard following the filming of Dad and Dave: On Our Selection (1995).