Stewarton Farm, Whites Valley

The stone walls at 6 Bayliss Road, Whites Valley, are among the oldest surviving structures in the Aldinga district. Low, gabled, built from various local stone, they are all that remain of Stewarton Farm — the first house of Duncan Stewart, who came ashore in South Australia as a young man of twenty and spent more than sixty years working the same piece of ground.

From Edinburgh to Aldinga

Stewart was born in Edinburgh in 1819 and sailed from Greenock aboard the barque Ariadne, arriving at the colony in August 1839. Among the passengers who made that same voyage was Annabella McMillan, a young Scotswoman born the same year as Stewart. He married her at Adelaide in May 1843, and she remained beside him in the Aldinga district for the rest of her life.

The couple settled in the Willunga District by 1844. In 1846 Stewart purchased Section 241 — a block of land east of what is now Bayliss Road — from George Fife Angas, one of South Australia's founding investors and a major landowner across the south. It was here that Stewart built Stewarton Farm, raising a simple rectangular stone house that he would later extend with a second section, creating the double-gabled form whose ruins survive today. The walls retain traces of the plaster finish that once coated the interior, and timber lintels remain over the doorway openings.

The Free Presbyterian Church

In 1856, Stewart donated a portion of Section 241 to the Trustees of the Free Presbyterian Church for the construction of a place of worship in the valley. The church opened for divine worship on 14 December 1856, with the Reverend James Benny of the John Knox congregation at Morphett Vale preaching at the opening services; the building, which could seat a hundred and fifty people, had cost nearly £600 to complete. Stewart later became one of the church's trustees. James Benny's brother George was inducted as minister of the Aldinga congregation in January 1867, though by 1870 he had resigned due to inadequate congregational support. As settlers left the district for new lands to the north and south-east, the congregation dwindled; a member wrote in 1880 that few remained and the building was too costly to repair. The Aldinga church closed, and the broader Free Presbyterian Presbytery of the district ceased to exist in 1883.

A Man of the District

His standing in the wider community grew steadily over those decades. Appointed a Justice of the Peace, Stewart conducted coronial inquests across the district — including into a fire at Aldinga in 1883 and a haystack blaze on a neighbouring property in 1887. In 1867 he chaired the committee that organised the Aldinga ploughing match, an event that drew competitors and spectators from across the district, and in 1870 he again took the chair when local electors gathered at the Aldinga Hotel to endorse a candidate for the House of Assembly. He sat on the Aldinga District Council for fifty years without a break — from 1854 to 1904 — and served at various points as its chairman.

His farming earned recognition from early in his time on Section 241. Among the family's mementoes was a medal from the Willunga ploughing match of August 1852 — inscribed 'Best ploughman' on one face and 'First medal, August 1852, Willunga' on the other — one of the earliest ploughing competitions held in the district. He won the prize for the best draught colt or filly at the Willunga Agricultural Society's annual show in 1857, and by 1866 his wheat was being judged the finest grown on the Aldinga plains. He was also a regular judge of draught stock at ploughing matches and shows across the district.

Family and Last Years

Stewart's daughter Mary McGregor Stewart married Brant Butterworth, who worked the adjoining Section 240, known as Mill Farm — a property that shared a boundary with her father's land. The Butterworth name was already a familiar one in local affairs: John Butterworth had served as a judge at the 1867 ploughing match that Duncan had chaired.

Annabella died in May 1896, after seven years of paralysis. The Register's Aldinga correspondent wrote that she had been "an old and much-respected resident" and that the funeral was "hugely attended." Stewart survived her by eleven years, dying at Stewarton Farm on 15 October 1907 at the age of eighty-eight. The Chronicle's obituary placed him squarely in the first generation of the district's settlers:

He obtained a section of land at Aldinga in 1846, built a house, married and raised a family there; and lived on the one property until the day of his death.

Chronicle, 26 October 1907.

He had been a colonist for sixty-eight years. Five of his children survived him — his son Duncan, who continued to occupy the property, and his son Robert, both at Aldinga; a daughter, Miss Stewart, who remained at Stewarton; and two others who had moved further afield. After his death a later house was built on the site of an earlier addition; it is the current residence, standing adjacent to the ruins.

The Ruins Today

The walls of Stewarton Farm remain on the City of Onkaparinga local heritage list. More recent survey work has also identified a slate channel and a well on the property — both likely dating from Stewart's time, formed to support the farm's agricultural workings — elements not recorded in earlier heritage assessments. They stand within the original Section 241, quiet survivals from the years when Duncan Stewart was still breaking ground there.

Sources

• South Australian Register (Adelaide), 22 May 1857 — Free Presbytery of South Australia third anniversary meeting, report on formation and opening of the Aldinga congregation, December 1856. Trove
• South Australian Weekly Chronicle (Adelaide), 7 March 1857 — Willunga Agricultural Society annual exhibition, prize list including Stewart's draught colt or filly. Trove
• Adelaide Observer, 19 January 1867 — Induction of Reverend George Benny as minister at the Free Presbyterian Church, Aldinga. Trove
• South Australian Register (Adelaide), 24 July 1867 — Aldinga ploughing match preliminary meeting, Stewart elected committee chairman. Trove
• South Australian Register (Adelaide), 24 March 1870 — Meeting at Aldinga Hotel, Stewart chairs meeting of local electors. Trove
• South Australian Register (Adelaide), 11 February 1873 — Aldinga District Council proceedings, Stewart elected Councillor for Mill Ward. Trove
• South Australian Register (Adelaide), 20 March 1883 — Fire inquest at Aldinga, Stewart presiding as coroner. Trove
• South Australian Register (Adelaide), 2 June 1887 — Haystack fire inquest at Aldinga, Stewart presiding as Justice of the Peace. Trove
• South Australian Register (Adelaide), 29 May 1896 — Aldinga correspondent, death of Annabella Stewart. Trove
• South Australian Register (Adelaide), 16 October 1907 — Death notice, Duncan Stewart of Stewarton Farm, Aldinga. Trove
• Chronicle (Adelaide), 26 October 1907 — Obituary of Duncan Stewart; council service, agricultural career, and surviving family. Trove
• Mole, Rosemary. Cornerstones: A History of the Churches of the Southern Vales. 1980 — chapter on the Aldinga Free Presbyterian Church, including the church opening (December 1856), congregation history, and closure c.1880
• City of Onkaparinga Heritage Survey Stage 3 Report — 6 Bayliss Road, Whites Valley: site history, ruins, slate channel and well, and photograph of the ruins (2022)
• City of Onkaparinga — heritage assessment, 6 Bayliss Road, Whites Valley (slate channel and well), 2019 — history of the site and additional details on the Stewart family's tenure
• City of Onkaparinga Heritage Register — FP-164032, Duncan Stewart's House (ruins), 6 Bayliss Road, Whites Valley, local heritage place #5558
• Willunga History SA — Duncan Stewart's House, 6 Bayliss Road, Whites Valley