Photographs from the State Library of South Australia, City of Onkaparinga Libraries, and other collections — farms, hotels, churches, wineries, and the people who built this district. Click any photograph to read the post it comes from.
The swing bridge in the late nineteenth century — slim suspension cables strung between anchor points on either bank, foot traffic only (AI-restored)
St Andrew's Scotch Church, Morphett Vale — from an 1853 painting, five years before the fire. The only surviving image of the building
The Horseshoe Inn, c.1860 — around the start of Thomas Dungey's tenure (AI-restored)
The Reverend Thomas Quinton Stow, who preached at the chapel's opening in February 1850. Portrait, 1864
The Happy Valley Congregational Church, 1867, with the manse to the right. Copies of this photograph were sold for the manse building fund: 2/6 for members, 3/- for others.
A horse team hauls a load to the Tintara winery, 1867. Getting materials in — and wine out — required teams of eight to ten horses across country with no proper roads
Title page of Kelly's second book, published in Adelaide in 1867 as the Tintara vines were coming into bearing
Tsong Gyiaou, photographed around 1867 — the avenue of gum trees Aldersey planted in 1862 lines the drive
The ruins of the abandoned first home, painted in 1868 — twenty-five years after the family had moved across the creek
Murray's biscuit and jam factory at Craiglee, Coromandel Valley, 1872
The timber bridge at Clarendon, c.1872 — fourteen years into its life, the laminated red deal arch over the Onkaparinga still intact
Clarendon from School Hill, c.1875. The thatched building in the left middle distance is the Tally-Ho Hotel
John Knox Free Presbyterian Church, Morphett Vale, 1876 — the year the buttresses were added and the roof replaced
Morphett Vale Public School, 1890s — about a decade after opening, with the 1881 verandah in place (AI-restored)
The valley before construction, early 1890s — the paddocks, fences, and scattered buildings that would shortly be inundated (AI-restored)
The original Happy Valley cemetery, photographed before the reservoir was built in the 1890s. The embankment rose across this site; the graves were relocated to the new cemetery to the south of the surviving church, where the trees were planted after 1892
Glenheath homestead, 1896, with members of the Liston family and the iron water tank at right
The reservoir filling for the first time, 1896 — the same country, with the township gone under (AI-restored)
Main South Road, Morphett Vale, 1898 — the Emu Hotel visible among the trees at right (AI-restored)
The O'Sullivan family, Morphett Vale, c.1898. Standing (from left): Ignatius, Lillian May, John (Jack), Barry. Seated: Herbert, Eugene, Thomas Senior, Thomas Junior (AI-restored)
Christ Church, O'Halloran Hill in 1900, Glenthorne house can be seen in the background (AI-restored)
Chateau Reynella, 1900 — completed the year Carew took over the family business
The Horseshoe Hotel, 1901 — during John Charles Dungey's second tenure (AI-restored)
Grape wagons at Tintara, 1901. Hardy had expanded the original Kelly cellars and built the Mill Cellars on McLaren Vale's main street; by this point the operation employed dozens at vintage
John Knox Free Presbyterian Church, Morphett Vale, 1903
The distilling house at Bridge Street, 1910 — during the expansion of the brandy operation (AI-restored)
The Smith family at The Pines, 1907 — Catherine "Kate" and J. D. Smith, with their daughter Violet, daughter-in-law Ruth (née Oliver of (AI-restored)
White's Flour Mill, Aldinga, 1908 — the mill had closed decades earlier; the 80-foot chimney was demolished in 1906
Interior of the Old Cave, 1910 — the original sugar gum roofing timbers overhead, wine barrels on both sides
Outside the Emu Hotel during the O'Sullivan years, c.1903–1919 (AI-restored)
Port Noarlunga, c.1910–20 — between the old jetty and the new, between the working port and the holiday town (AI-restored)
The Higgins blacksmith shop on Main South Road, c.1910 — immediately west of the Emu Hotel (AI-restored)
The whip well, 1912 — a horse-driven counterweight winch for hauling water up from depth; common in the era before reticulation reached the town (AI-restored)
Mounted Regiment Rides Past Victoria Hotel, 1910 (AI-restored)
Infantry passing the Victoria Hotel, Tapley's Hill, Easter 1911
Supply wagons of the Army Service Corps passing the Victoria Hotel, Tapley's Hill, Easter 1911
The Horseshoe Mill, 1913 — by this date converted to a chaff mill, the four-storey original still recognisable (AI-restored)
A coach drawn up outside the Horseshoe Hotel, 1913 — two years before the railway reached Willunga and made coaching obsolete (AI-restored)
The Alton guest house and tea rooms, c.1913. The sign on the side of the building reads "Alton Afternoon Tea."
Reynella township from the hill, c.1913, the Crown Hotel visible upper right
Vale Royal Winery, 1903 — built to the same specification as Horndale — State Library of South Australia, B 17682 (AI-restored)
Sparrow's Crossing on the Main South Road at Hackham, c.1915 — the Willunga railway line had opened in January that year
The Golden Pheasant Hotel, Hackham, c.1920 — closed since 1863, by then a private residence (AI-restored)
The Old Barn in 1920 — three quarters of a century after it was built, three decades after the wheat trade through the port had ended
The Worthing Mine chimney stack, 1920 — the enginehouse long gone but the chimney still standing above the Field River valley (AI-restored)
Port Noarlunga, 1925 — the year the footbridge across the estuary opened (AI-restored)
The Horseshoe Hotel, 1927 — six years before the licence was transferred to the new Port Noarlunga Hotel (AI-restored)
The distilling house, 1928 — still in production more than a decade after Carew's death (AI-restored)
The Reynella quarry face, 1928 — the ropeway buckets visible above (AI-restored)
Morphett Vale District Council Chambers, 1930s (AI-restored)
Rows of casks outside the Emu Wines winery, Morphett Vale, c. 1930s — the export boom at its height
The new Port Noarlunga Hotel, 1932 — F. Kenneth Milne's £6,000 building, the first licensed house between Glenelg and Victor Harbor (AI-restored)
Flooding at Port Noarlunga, 1933 — the river over the flats again, two years before the worst event of the decade (AI-restored)
The swing bridge in 1913 — the structure as it stood the year Grace McGaffin's body was recovered from the water beneath it (AI-restored)
The 1936 bridge, photographed in 1940 — the fourth iteration, and the one that would stand the longest (AI-restored)
Land Army girl Audrey Goldsmith working at the Morphett Vale flax mill, 1942
Courtney Ferris's service station, 1944 — petrol bowsers in the yard where the bullock teams had once rested (AI-restored)
Aerial view of the Emu Wines complex, Morphett Vale, 1946 — the winery buildings, surrounding vineyards, and the railway line to the west
Reynella Oval, 1947 — the year before the club joined the Southern Football Association (AI-restored)
The Onkaparinga at Noarlunga, 1950 — the tree stump on the left served as the town's flood marker; if the water reached the fork, the town was about to flood (AI-restored)
The Aberfoyle homestead, c.1950s — the two-storey stone house Christian Sauerbier built in the 1870s, with its lacework ironwork verandah. Happy Valley Council purchased the property in 1988; by then the coachhouse had become derelict and been fenced off
The laying of the foundation stone, 22 August 1953 — J. G. Woolcock, then believed to be the oldest practising Justice of the Peace in South Australia, doing the honours; Mrs Carew Reynell (May Marion, née Byard) stands at right (AI-restored)
The former chapel photographed in 1951, by then a private residence
The Esplanade, 1960s — the Barker cairn visible on the right; the working port long gone, the holiday town settling into its quieter middle age (AI-restored)
The Happy Valley turn-off, 1961 — the war memorial sign visible at the storefront marks the centre of the post-reservoir village (AI-restored)
Mason's Store at O'Halloran Hill, photographed in 1963 — the year the Highways Department demolished it to make way for road alterations. The Three Rifles Monument stands in the foreground at the corner of Main South Road and Chandlers Hill Road.
St Mary's Catholic Church with the Pioneer Cemetery visible at left, 1969
Willunga railway station, 1968 — one year before the line closed
The original Tapley's Hotel building, photographed in 1970
Thomas Tapley of Tapley's Hill, The Victoria Hotel, Tapley's Hill
The original church, 1971, shortly before the new building opened alongside it
Melville Farm in 1979, on the eve of the subdivisions that would absorb most of the land (AI-restored)
The queue stretching down Goldsmith Drive on opening day, 2 October 1979
Hallett's Bridge, c.1980 — the 1867 limestone arch, already bypassed by the time this was taken (AI-restored)
Ruins of the Victoria School near Christie Creek, 1980s — the building that opened in 1854 and served the district for twenty-five years
The Worthing Mine ruins at Hallett Cove, 1980 — stone walls of the enginehouse still standing
The Old Cave's original sugar gum roofing timbers exposed during Hardy's 1982–83 restoration
The manse being demolished in May 1983, the church standing alongside. The bluestone outer walls and rubble core are exposed where the loader has broken through
St Francis Winery, 1984 — the building in its winery years, before conversion to the current resort (AI-restored)
Dalkeith Farm ruins, 1984 — the view of the coast still visible behind the collapsed walls (AI-restored)
The Old Cave, 1984 — nearly 140 years old, its mound blanketed in ivy
Mount Hurtle Winery, 1987 — two years after Geoff Merrill's purchase, the restoration already underway
The restored original church, 1988 — stone uncovered after decades of render
The 2019 bridge — galvanised steel cable and timber decking, the fifth iteration at the horseshoe.
The Victory Hotel, Aldinga, 1910 — established 1858, renamed Norman's Victory Hotel the following year
Belle Vue, the O'Sullivan homestead at Morphett Vale, built from stone quarried on the property (AI-restored)
Belle Vue House — the former Clifton Hotel after Thomas Hardy acquired and extended it. The building stands today as the Old McLaren Hotel (AI-restored)
Easton's Barn — sandstone walls with timber-lintelled doors and the curved galvanised-iron roof Daniel Easton built in 1857, riveted into shape and supported by nothing underneath (AI-restored)
Pte. Claud William Mason, 48th Battalion AIF, killed in France on 8 August 1918.
Sections 625 and 626 on the original survey of the Hundred of Noarlunga — the land Alexander Wearing Long purchased in 1839 and subdivided into the United States settlement
The surviving ruins at the Mount Malvern Silver Lead Mine site, Chandlers Hill (AI-restored)
Featured image for 'Dr Kelly and the Tintara Vineyard Company'
Glenheath homestead before Henry Liston raised the walls and rebuilt, probably before 1895
The Kenny family outside the Clarendon Bakery, c.1901. The stone building, roofed in corrugated iron by then, stood on the site of the Tally-Ho Hotel
Plaque marking the site of John Reynell's first home, built with his brother-in-law Thomas Lucas
The memorial cairn on Creighton Avenue, Morphett Vale, marking the approximate site where Anderson was buried in 1862. The plaque, erected by the National Trust in 1973, reads: 'Laid to rest, 1862, Town Patriarch, Alexander Anderson, The Lodge.'
The Sauerbier House at 48 Saltfleet Street, Port Noarlunga — the 1897 Victorian villa George and Emily built as a seaside retreat from the McLaren Flat sheep farm. They eventually moved there permanently
The Higgins blacksmith shop on Main South Road, undated (AI-restored)
The McLaren Vale Congregational Church, built in 1861 by Henry Scotcher — the steeply pitched slate roof that became a landmark on Main Road (AI-restored)
The original Tintara winery at Blewitt Springs, built into the hillside in 1863. Kelly's house stood nearby; the unfinished mansion was on the ridge above
The view from the Aberfoyle homestead looking across the family's vineyard to the farm buildings and the hills beyond. Christian Sauerbier described himself as a "farmer and vinegrower"; the vineyard continued under his son John Christian, whose wine cellars were broken into in 1898