Who was Virginia?
Getting behind the names on Adelaide's northern plains with Keith Conlon.

The northern plains of the Adelaide region are in transition. Farming districts are becoming suburbs, and so on Postcards this week I took viewers to spots where the history pokes through - if you know what to look for.

The old Pt. Wakefield Road is also the main street for the market gardeners' town of Virginia. Who was she? A wealthy Irish settler had a town surveyed here which he named after his home in Southern Ireland, and it was so titled after Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen.

Hidden behind the 1970's facade, there's a very old Wheatsheaf Hotel there. It was first licensed in 1854. Wheatsheaf's and hay for horses was what the district was all about last century.

The big change for Virginia came after World War II. As the old market garden areas closer to the city in Marion and Campbelltown were swallowed by suburbia, Mediterranean families (and later South East Asian immigrants) looked to make this the 'heart of horticulture' for the region.

The market gardens and orchards stretch to Angle Vale, about half way between Virginia and Gawler. Even thirty kilometres from the GPO, the relentless role of the subdivisions is clearly seen. There's a new housing estate behind a fence coming right up to the old junction created where the surveyed road for Salisbury meets the link road from Virginia to Gawler. It created the 'angle' in Angle Vale.

Only a kilometre north of the crossroads is the district's claim to fame on the national heritage scene. The graceful arched bridge of over the Gawler River (still dry a month into winter) is a thing of beauty.

Its curving beams were constructed of laminated timber. Iron girders were too expensive to import in 1876. There were once fifteen such bridges round the nation, and now this is the only one left.

Only a few kilometres south, closer to the city, the Postcards crew wound its way through the half completed housing estate of Andrews Farm to discover a very attractive wetland lake and park. Once, wheat paddocks all through this region soaked up every drop of rain. Now, thousands of roofs and roads between them create floods of stormwater.

That is where the Stebonheath Flow Control Parks comes in. It is a creative and pretty way of slowing down the gunk - laiden stormwater. In the process, it cleans it up, which is nice for our gulf waters, and it provides a pretty lake and park area, which is great for the ducks - and the people of Andrews Farm. There is also an experiment going on which sees the winter volume pumped down into the aquifers underground for storage and use in summer on the parks.

Andrews Farm was just that. The Andrews family farmed it for about a century, into the 1970's when wheat stalks gave way to housing construction. It si home to about 2000 people already, with about the same number to come in 600 more houses.

We filmed cheeky lorikeets in hollow branch of an old gum tree outside the Smithfield Hotel. The parrots have enjoyed the eucalyptus round the old pub since it was almost a day's thirsty coach ride form Adelaide. It was built by Scottish pioneer John Smith', he's the Smith in Smithfield.

When he raised the two-storey version (still dominant behind its modern extensions) to match the railway coming through, the locals called it Smith's Folly. It was obviously on the grand side in their eyes.

Growing hay was Smithfield's main game last century (it's run of service stations along the Main North Road are still providing fuel for today's horsepower). It's more famous for its growing population now.

Close by the hotel is the Munno Para council complex. It is amalgamated with Elizabeth to form the Playford City Council - an appropriate name, given the long serving Premier Tom Playford's role in bringing industries and population to the northern plains. In his time in office (27 years), the population of South Australia almost doubled through migration and the baby boom.

The satellite city of Elizabeth absorbed the first wave, and it's still happening through Munno Para, the Kanrna aboriginal word for Golden Wattle Creek. A striking red rusted steel sculpture of elephant tusk shapes rise out of the park pavement in front of one of the offices. Sculptor Antonio Colangelo shaped them in memory of an Asian elephant that lived with the Smiths of Smithfield briefly.

Legends abound about Tommy the Elephant. Did he help divert Smith's Creek? Probably not. Did he pull a plough? Very likely - but too slowly, it would appear, because he was sold to the Gepps Cross Hotel. There, he helped pull wagons out of Gluepot Road (now the main highway north), and lived on a trunkful of beer and a loaf of bread for lunch!

Our search for the origins of the names of the northern plains finally took the Postcards going up Uley Road east of the Smithfield area into the foothills. The views from the hobby farms on the rise are far reaching across the flat expanse to the sea. New roofs glint among occasional green patches.

Preacher and weaver Moses Garlick named his farming district Uleybury after Uley in Gloucestershire. It reminded him of those famous English hills, the Cotswolds. He pushed successfully for the establishment of a little chapel-like school.

Uleybury School served from 1856 until 1971, by which time it was the longest-serving state school in South Australia. It is now run as a school museum, with inkwells and quaint textbooks to evoke past days. You can call in on Sunday afternoons 2-4 p.m., or arrange a school visit.

But where is the tree at One Tree Hill? The Village itself is now a busy commuter centre, but out on the ridge overlooking the gulf, the rambling cottage that was once One Tree hill pub still stands to give us a clue about where the tree might be.

Predicably, it's gone. It used to be seen for miles from the plain below, and so when it was lost in a bushfire sometime last century, the authorities tried to replace it. After several failed attempts, they planted five gum tree saplings for good measure - and they are all still thriving! Five Tree Hill?

The answers to the most often asked questions about the settlements of the northern plains are answered in an excellent new publication, "City of Playford - A Brief History". It is available from the Local and Family History Centre, 3 Windsor Square, Elizabeth, SA 5114 (Phone: 8254 0343).