Birdwood, South Australia Totally Explained

Everything about Birdwood South Australia totally explained

Birdwood is a town near Adelaide, South Australia. It is located in the Adelaide Hills Council local government area.

History

Origin of the name

Formerly known as Blumberg, the German town name was anglicized during World War I, along with many others in the region in 1917. The new name honoured Sir William Birdwood, the Australian Imperial Force general who led the Anzacs at Gallipoli. The original name's origins are uncertain but some Prussian settlers originating from a village of that name is the most likely source.

European settlement

Migrants who had temporarily settled at Lobethal began looking for land of their own in 1848. Pastor Fritzsch recommended this spot beside the Torrens, where he camped on the way to Bethany. Birdwood grew with homes on land leased from G F Angas and a church some distance away. The town prospered by the 1850s, and the area was producing enough grain to justify the construction of the Blumberg Flour Mill (now the site of the motor museum). In 1865, during the local gold rush, the Blumberg Inn was built.

Rail history

Birdwood once had a train station on the Mt. Pleasant train line at 44.13 miles (71 km) from Adelaide The line came via Balhannah and wasn't a very direct route. The line was closed during one of the rail reformations as it wasn't a very profitable line, probably due to the more direct Adelaide-Mannum road. The track is now long gone but the earthworks can still be seen along the edges of the Birdwood flat to Mt Torrens and towards Mt Pleasant. Also still standing is an old stone railway bridge near Mt Torrens.

Geography

Birdwood sits on a crossroads between the Adelaide-Mannum Road, the road leading north towards Williamstown and the Barossa Valley, and the road leading south towards Lobethal, Hahndorf and the South Eastern Freeway.
At the ABS 2006 census, Birdwood had a population of 1,127.

Facilities

Birdwood has a government-operated primary (opened 1878) and high school (opened 1909), small supermarket, a few delicatessens and antique shops. A number of churches have formed part of the history of the town, including the Roman Catholic Church near the sports grounds, the nearby Lutheran church and cemetery which is just beyond the town limits; the United Church in the centre of town, which united long before the Uniting Church formed, and the Seventh-day Adventist Church further along Shannon Street.
Birdwood is also home to the National Motor Museum (External Link

) (in what used to be the Old Mill), and is the endpoint of the annual Bay to Birdwood run (External Link

), in which vintage motor vehicles are driven by their owners from Glenelg past the city and through the hills to finish at the museum where a festival is held. The museum was started by Jack Kaines and Len Vigar in 1964, and was purchased by the South Australian Government in 1976, holding a large and historically important collection of cars, motorcycles and commercial vehicles.
Just north of Birdwood is the Cromer Conservation Park, proclaimed in 1976, with an open-forest formation of long-leafed box with Pink Gum and an open woodland formation of Red Gum, which forms an important habitat for honeyeaters. Mining for yellow ochre occurred in the park during the 1800s. There are no formal walking trails or visitor facilities.

Transport

The area isn't serviced by Adelaide public transport. A coach is operated from Tea Tree Plaza Interchange to Gumeracha and Mount Pleasant by Affordable Coachlines.
Birdwood has a lot of through traffic, and a traffic calming device was installed at the Adelaide end of town to discourage speeding. A significant number of road accidents occur on the Adelaide-Mannum road, and the sites of these are marked with red and black posts.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Birdwood South Australia'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://birdwood__south_australia.totallyexplained.com">Birdwood, South Australia Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.