Things To See And Do

Markets

EVANDALE MARKET
Logan Rd, Evandale
Trading: Every Sunday – 8am – 1pm
Type: General. Phone: (03) 6391 9191

Evandale’s historic buildings include: Old State School; ‘Cambrook’ outbuildings; ‘Summer Field’ (old Police Residence); Dr. Stewart’s House; Water Tower; Prince of Wales Hotel (c.1836); Old Manse (1838-40); ‘Blenheim’ and outbuildings (1832); ‘The Laurels’ (1830s); Council Clerk’s Residence; Council Chambers (1867); Post Office (1888); Old School House; Robert Wale’s House; Village Antiques and Old Butchery (c.1840); former Royal Oak Hotel and Stables (c.1840); Clarendon Hotel and store (1847); RSL Club (built as Methodist Chapel, 1836); Marlborough School and Library; Brown’s Shop and Storehouse; ‘Riverview” ‘Pleasant Banks’ homestead and outbuildings (1838).

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Famous Sons

John Batman, the founder of Melbourne, and landscape painter John Glover lived near the town with Glover memorialised in an annual art prize and a statue at Falls Park.

John Kelly, father of the bushranger Ned Kelly, worked in the township as a convict.

Surrounding Area

Clarendon House

Clarendon House is arguably one of Australia’s greatest Georgian houses still standing today. It has formal gardens and grounds, a tree lined avenue, Italianate facade, restored early colonial outbuildings and is owned by the National Trust. The wealthy grazier and merchant James Cox (son of William Cox) had the house built in 1838.

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Woolmers Estate

 Prominent among the early settlers, the Archer family built a number of grand houses and estates in the area. They farmed and developed the land, and built a number of homesteads which are among the finest in northern Tasmania. Six generations of Archers have lived in Woolmers Estate, from 1817 to 1994; it is now owned by the Woolmers Foundation Inc and is open to the public. Regarded as the most authentic remaining example of an Australian pioneer farm, it has established a National Rose Garden, with more than 4,000 roses on display.

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Brickendon Historic Farm

One of Tasmania’s World Heritage Convict Sites, Brickendon Historic Farm and Convict Village was built by William Archer in 1824; the village is still owned by his descendents. The complex affords the a rare chance to see a Georgian homestead, convict-built Gothic chapel, Dutch barns, chicken house, blacksmith shop and tool shed and stay in historic farm cottages. There is also a four hectare (10 acre) historic garden for you to explore.

John Glover: artist

Glover arrived in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), Australia on his 64th birthday in 1831, two decades before the goldrush of the 1850s. He brought with him a strong reputation as a landscape painter. He acquired one of the largest grants of land in Van Diemen’s Land at the time at Mills Plains, Deddington. He named his new property Patterdale after Blowick Farm, a property near Patterdale, at the foot of Ullswater in the English Lake District, which he had once owned.

Glover is best known now for his paintings of the Tasmanian landscape. He gave a fresh treatment to the effects of the Australian sunlight on the native bushland by depicting it bright and clear, a definite departure from the darker “English country garden” paradigm. Note this example ‘Patterdale Farm’. His treatment of the local flora was also new because it was a more accurate depiction of the Australian trees and scrubland. Glover noted the “remarkable peculiarity of the trees” in Australia and observed that “however numerous, they rarely prevent your tracing through them the whole distant country”. ‘Natives on the Ouse River’ One of his most subjective works, this painting is informed by European notions of an Antipodean Arcadia, with Indigenous people living in a landscape unsullied by European contact. However, it stands in marked contrast to the actual situation of the traditional owners of Ouse River country – the Braylwunyer people of the Big River nation – which was one of dispossession and violence at the hands of the colonists. John Glover’s last major work was painted on his 79th birthday.

The John Glover Society was established to honor and promote Glover’s memory and his contribution to Australian art. The society commissioned a life-size statue of Glover unveiled in February 2003 in Evandale. It also runs an annual landscape art competition called the Glover Prize in Tasmania. It is the richest art prize in Australia for landscape painting.