Day 123: Burra

 A southerly change came through last night and the wind has died right down, but it is cool 12-15 C most of the day.

There is still a lot of this area for us to see, so we set out after breakfast to continue our exploration along the Burra Heritage Trail.

To put things in perspective by 1851, Burra had a population of 5,000 making it the 7th largest town in Australia and the largest inland centre prior to the discovery of gold in Eastern Australia. At the same time Adelaide had a population of 18,000. The population is now around 1200.

Our first stop was the old courthouse and police lockup. Built in 1847, lockup cells and stables were erected at the rear of the first Police Station.

The police station 

Stable Yard

Stables

Toilet

The urinal

Lockup cell

Cobbled yard behind police station in lockup area

On the same site, The Redruth Courthouse was built in 1857

Redruth Courthouse

Following on from this theme, we next visited the Redruth Gaol, built in 1856. It was the first gaol inside South Australia erected outside Adelaide.

There are two separate rows of cells running along the centre of the gaol, each with exercise yards. We assume one for males and one for females. On either side of the entrance was the Gaol keepers quarters, and the Turnkeys Quarters.

Cell blocks and exercise yards

After the gaol was closed in 1894, it was renovated and reopened in 1897 as a Girls Reformatory before closure in 1922.

Below are some of parts of the building that were the quarters for the Gaol keeper and Turnkey, seemingly refitted for the reformatory.

One family lived in the gaol between the time it went from being a gaol to a reformatory. Another family lived there afterwards between1943 and 1956. 

The history is carefully recorded on information panels throughout this complex which give a comprehensive and colourful view of the various stages of use of this facility. Some of the anecdotes from the days of the Girls Reformatory are quite entertaining.

We continue on to the site of the Burra Smelting Works, championed by technology from Wales and attracting many Welsh experts to build and run the smelters.

Much of the smelter infrastructure was demolished and the building materials used within the town. Today it is really a site of ruins, but the enormity of its previous presence has been preserved through a 1.2 km well signposted trail through the old smelter complex.

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Layout of the smelting works

At its peak, the smelting works employed 1,000 men and boys, and burnt 150 tonnes of wood per day, possibly explains the absence of trees in the area.

Ruins of the old smelter buildings

The ore from this deposit was easy to smelt and required less steps than the Welsh were traditional used to because of the purity of the ore and low sulphur content. 

At least 100,000 tonnes of slag accumulated at the site and the Burra Slag Extraction Company was formed to extract copper still present in the slag. Between 1900 and 1902 they processed 100,000 tonnes of slag and extracted 450 tonnes of copper.

The Smelter chimney was demolished in the 1950's as it was considered a danger to children playing in the area, trying to climb the chimney.

Continuing along the Heritage trail  then took us to the miners dugouts. When production was at its peak there was not enough housing to provide accommodation for the number of Cornish Miners that had come to Burra to work this deposit. They resorted to using their mining skills and built dugouts along the banks of Burra Creek as their dwellings.

A few of the dugouts have been preserved

Size of dugouts varied from one or two rooms to several more depending how far into the bank they tunnelled. One that was available to inspect had a basic room at the front and a cooking area inside.

Sanitation was a huge problem as the creek was the source of water, a place to bath, wash clothes etc and dispose of waste. a number of deaths from disease resulted.

After lunch we visited the Bon Accord Mine Museum, the site of another mine built by speculators from Scotland that failed to live up to expectations.

The museum was more about the Burra Monster Mine, than it was about the failed Bon Accord Venture. However some of the infrastructure around Bon Accord  was well featured.

The Blacksmith's shop and forge

A Model T Ford Fire Engine

The Bon Accord Mine Shaft has been preserved going down 300 ft

Nearby was the railway station, which is now closed and has also been turned into a museum. It only opens for a few hours each day and we missed the timing. You can rent a B&B in the station building and a dining car is a permanent feature at the platform. It asset up for functions and occasionally opens to provide morning tea or meals.

The nearby Bon Accord Hotel opened in 1874, only a few years after rail services came to Burra, and now seems a bit isolated away from town without the booming business it must have enjoyed when the rail was operational. They now allow free camping or powered caravan sites out the back to try to encourage business.

I think we have seen most of the sights of Burra and it is time to retreat to the caravan. Tonight we went to the Burra Hotel for dinner, one of the few venues open on a Monday night.  By 7 pm, the dining room was fully booked and people were eating in the bar or being turned away. It was not all tourists, a large number of the patrons were locals. The food was good.

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Burra Hotel dining room