In my spots of free time I am making an effort to walk some of the many tracks through the bush around here. Spurring me on is a book that has just come out about South Hobart, titled Beneath The Mountain by Alison Alexander. It’s a big, fat, detailed and well-illustrated history of the place that has been our home for fifteen years now.
I read it from cover to cover. The first two-thirds of it, while fascinating, were driving me nuts due to the lack of specific addresses for all the lively pubs, factories, dairies etc that are mentioned. But in the last third the author does a street-by-street survey and mentions actual street addresses for now-gone buildings, businesses and institutions.
South Hobart was very seriously affected by the great 1967 bushfire that raged across southern Tasmania - many houses were lost, and it is often the reason behind an early 70s brick house appearing amongst weatherboards in the streetscape.
One building that may have been demolished after the fire was the head brewer's house at Cascade Brewery. It's there on a hill in this painting by Haughton Forrest from 1890. (The brewery is now four stories higher).
I decided to walk up there and see if anything was left. There is a mobile phone tower on the crest of the hill now so I knew we could get at least that far. Turns out the foundations are still there and a few interesting rusty bits and pieces. The thick power cables to the humming phone tower were laid right over the foundations.
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| Some kind of heater/cooler? |
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| Not much domestic stuff left but this is nice |
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| Foundations running away from the camera with power source laid across |
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| The back of the Cascade Brewery |
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