Unley Road, Village charm and city style: In the Adelaide City region of South Australia
Unley Road….for some it's all boutiques and shopping labels, for others a home improver’s heaven, and for many it’s the froth and bubble of a good coffee and a catch-up with friends.
Of course If you're driving along Unley Road you're going to miss what makes Unley beautiful. And that’s the combination of village charm and city style. On our cappuccino tour of Unley Road, I think you'll find they've got the best of both elements.
To trace the beginnings of Unley, head for Heywood Park at the end of King William Road. There, on Brownhill Creek, it all started rather humbly in 1840 with the little hut of Thomas Whistler. His subdivision for a village was probably named after a hamlet, 'Undley', in the fields of Suffolk, England.
By the mid 1800's, Unley was growing into a village and the heart of it was on the western side of Unley Road near the old Bakery. Then, as now, you could walk from Unley to the city, but there was the risk of stray bullets as you passed through the colonial rifle range in the South Parklands! If you did make it safely back, an early watering hole was the Cremorne pub, which this year is celebrating its 150th anniversary. In days gone by the pub boasted its own zoo complete with birds, turtles and an elephant named ‘Tommy’.
As you cruise towards the hills past the pub, spare a thought for the bullockies of old. Around what they called Moonlight Corner was a quagmire that swallowed up a bullock. It perished in the pughole.
Such perils were left behind by the 1880’s when a cluster of churches began to rise along Unley Road. The first Anglican Church, St. Augustine’s, took some 20 years to complete and, by the 1920’s, its grand gothic successor was built next door. The corner building was its old schoolhouse, and over the side street the Congregationists built the steepled St. Andrews. Unfortunately its crowd-attracting parson, the Reverend Manthorpe, died during only its second Sunday Service.
There’s also a place for reflection along the stretch of road that is flanked by War Memorials. The lofty tower on one side, atop St. Augustine's, was built in memory of the fallen in WW1. Unley Museum Director, Kate Walker, explains the origins of the Soldier’s Memorial Gardens opposite.
“That was stimulated primarily by a group of ladies who were very keen to have the council build or purchase this land and then they did lots of fundraising to create the bandstand that we see behind us and the archway and even the tunics for the band.” Strangely, others vigorously opposed the project, and the feisty ladies only won the day by a few votes to establish a peaceful retreat in Unley’s commercial heart.
There’s a much-utilized pocket park created out of old backyards just behind Unley’s Civic Centre….a kind of village green amid old houses turned community facilities. It includes the Unley Museum which, until1968, was the Fire Station. Originally, two trusty steeds, Bluey and Turps, were part of the firefighting team.
It was no more than a village when the ornate Unley Institute was built in 1880 to be a town hall, council chamber, courthouse and library. And, as the twentieth century dawned, a new town hall was built to meet the increasing demands of a growing population. As Kate explains,
“ It got too big, the original town hall. They built the second in 1907, the year after Unley had reached its fabulous milestone of being the third city in the state, with 22,000 people. “
Nearly a century after its gala opening the refurbishments are completed and it’s back to its original splendor. Kate fills us in on some of the details.
“They’ve removed the false ceiling and so you've got that fabulous arching ceiling and lovely old floor boards and everything.”
It’s a nice symbol of Unley Road’s continuing success in melding the past with the present. Over that compulsory coffee, listen…you might catch an echo of a bullock’s bellow or the trumpeting of Tommy the elephant!
In the middle of the city of Unley next to the freshly painted Institute, a magnificent River Red Gum looks like the tree of knowledge, and one thing it does tell us is this used to be very swampy in the winter time long before the magnificent building went up late in the nineteenth century. Inside those doors now, it's beautiful, refurbished and the information highway to the future, the city's library. They'll surely find you a booklet, ‘Pathways to the Past’ to help on your tour. .
The new look Unley Library’s open every day and the Unley Museum is open four days a week. Please check for times.
Unley Civic Centre Library
181 Unley Rd.
Unley Ph: 8372 5100Unley Museum
80 Edmund Ave.
Unley Ph: 8372 5117
