The English Hawthorn has been called the world's finest hedge-plant for, besides being a thing of beauty, it is impenetrable to stock. Locally, we know it best for sharing its name with a picturesque suburb.
Originally, there was just a hedge of the plant north of what is now Hawthorndene Drive and its seeds were washed down Minnow Creek and germinated over a wide area.
Hewetts the builders owned the land with the hedge for some time and from the 1920s, when they began to replace their horses and trolleys with trucks, the Hawthorn really began to spread.
Hawthorndene, the suburb, is bounded by hill tops to the east, the railway and Main Road to the west, Turners Avenue to the south and Hawthorndene Drive to the north.
A residential area which has developed slowly, Hawthorndene has small pockets of industry scattered unobtrusively throughout its area. Its residents also have easy access to more open space and reserves than many of our City's other suburbs.
A gentleman named Nicholas Foott could be described as the first settler of the area, although his wooden home was apparently inside the current boundaries of Belair Recreation Park.
A 'Statement of the Extent of Cultivation' in South Australia to the end of 1840 was presented to the British Parliament and showed Foott to be occupying Sections 870, 873 and 886. He had fenced 10 acres with posts, two rails and narrow paling. He also had cattle and sheep-yards, but no crops or garden. Water was available all year on Section 886. (ref: BBP Vol.7/1842/44)
The area became known as Wardlaw Vale, named after Alexander Grindley Wardlaw who leased it to others from the 1850s, while retaining rights to its timber, stone, minerals, mines, quarries and brick earth.
Thomas Turner first leased 200 acres of the land at the southern end and, a decade later, bought it. Around 1859 he gave three men mining rights on the land for 21 years. This agreement was subject to a few conditions including that he be paid 1/20th of all ores raised, that he be paid £1 for each tree felled and that all shafts be secured to protect his cattle. (ref: GRO237/236)
When, after years of debate, the government finally decided on a railway route, a syndicate of men formed the Hills Land Investment Company. In 1882, a short time before the railway opened, they offered 66 acres within Section 886 for sale.
That land, formerly Mr Turner's garden, formed 101 allotments with "first class soil with very fine crops of strawberries etc having been gathered". (ref: Mortlock Lib. BRG109/5B/119)
Some of the century old homes along Sturt and Batley Avenues date from that time.
Carl Voge acquired Wardlaw's 80 acres of Section 873 for £400 in 1854.
In March 1908, the government bought 52 acres of Mr G.F. Dall's property for an experimental orchard. By 1927 over 4,000 different varieties of 17 types of deciduous fruit and nut trees (including 1,624 apples, 43 persimmons and 30 filbert and cob nut trees), were under cultivation. The experimental orchard closed about 1976. (ref:RGS Proceedings 1933-34) Subdivision attracted builders. The Hewetts, mentioned earlier, arrived in 1881 and first leased 160 acres from L. Glyde. The family purchased the land in 1896 and by 1900, had interest in Sections 870 and 873 as well.
Hewett Avenue, Hawthorndene, was once the driveway to their home on East Terrace, which they named 'Watahuna'.
The Hewetts loved their sport and encouraged sporting activities on the flat areas along Minnow Creek. Many other groups ups caught the train to Blackwood and walked down to the area to picnic or amble among the hills and Hawthorn.
Following Daniel Hewett's death in 1924, Watahuna was subdivided into 340 allotments as Hawthorndene (sic) with the popular picnic spots set aside as a proposed recreation oval, tennis courts, bowling greens and a croquet lawn.
From information supplied by Local History Officer Maggy Ragless.
Comments