288 Valleys of Stone
CHAPTER 17
George Stevenson’s Garden
Robert Martin
S ONE SPEEDS up the newest part of the South Eastern Freeway through the Glen Osmond,
A
a short new lane leads off it near the former Mountain Hut Hotel (now boarding kennels),
and becomes an underpass that joins up with the older road, which winds its circuitous way up the
hills and past another former hotel, the Eagle-on-the-Hill. The new section of freeway goes directly
forward from the interchange, and passes under this second hotel by means of the Heysen Tunnels
through the ridge. The underpass is in the locality known as the Devil’s Elbow, where there used to
be the main gateway to a notable garden, one that covered much of the gullies and slopes beyond
the Elbow. This garden was known originally as Stevenson’s Garden, and later by other names, such
as Leawood Gardens.
The garden, and the Eagle-on-the-Hill Hotel above, were victims of the freeway construction.
The garden was simply swept away. The hotel suffered from the loss of trade due to the re-routing of
the main road, and after a few years went out of business. Earlier, in 1983, both garden and hotel
had suffered grievously in a bushfire, and the garden had been in decline anyway.
To right and left of the freeway at the Devil’s Elbow, a few oak trees and conifers are visible, but
these do not necessarily hint at the past glories of a garden, and indeed precious few remnants exist
George Stevenson’s Garden 289
for even a more careful inspection. A bushfire,
road construction, and other eventualities have
cleared nearly everything away.
Stevenson’s Garden bore the name of its
founder George Stevenson, who with his wife
Margaret sailed from England with Governor
John Hindmarsh on the ship Buffalo and arrived
in South Australia in December 1836. Stevenson
was the governor’s private secretary, and he was
to have other official appointments in the
colony, including that of City Coroner. He was
also a proprietor and editor of the colony’s first
newspaper, the South Australian Gazette and
Colonial Register, and later established the South
Australian Gazette and Mining Journal.
Stevenson and his wife settled in Lower
Figure 17.2
George Stevenson ca. 1855
Courtesy of the State Library of South Australia
SLSA:B3661
North Adelaide where he bought four town
acres and built a single-storey cottage known as Lytton Lodge, which is now called Buffalo Cottage
and is one of the oldest surviving buildings in the state (Marsden et al. 1990: 334-35). The
dwelling’s original name paid homage to Edward Bulwer Lytton, the celebrated novelist, who had
attended the wedding of George and Margaret in 1836 (Express, 29 September 1874). The couple
had numerous literary and newspaper connections in the United Kingdom and contributed notably
to the intellectual and cultural life of South Australia. This culture included horticulture –
commercial, scientific, and ornamental – and George Stevenson did much to promote it, by his
example, by raising and selling plants, and by writing and lecturing.
Over time Stevenson developed a noteworthy garden in North Adelaide where some of the first
European or otherwise exotic trees in South Australia were grown after being brought from England
or picked up on the voyage in Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town, and later added to from other sources.
Of this garden it was reported that Stevenson:
… at great expense and trouble planted every procurable variety of vine, fruit-tree, and shrub, both of the temperate and
tropical climes. He did more, perhaps, than any other colonist to foster that regard for gardens for which South
Australians are so remarkable, and well earned the designation, more than once applied to him, of the “Father of
Horticulture in South Australia”.
Register 20 October 1856
Probably with a wish for a larger piece of land in which to expand his gardening interests,
Stevenson bought 80 acres of Section 1286 in Survey B for £130 in August 1842 (GRO 1855). He
bought it in the name of Margaret Gorton, his mother-in-law, who had accompanied the newlyweds
to South Australia. The section was purchased from John Brown, who had obtained the land grant
290 Valleys of Stone
to this property in February of the
same year. It was advertised as:
… bordered on the west and south-west
by the road and [it] contains some of
the finest garden ground in the colony,
and admirably suited for a small dairy
farm.
Devil’s
Elbow
Register 13 August 1842
Leawood
Gardens
The road referred to was
the newly constructed Great
Eastern Road, the main road to
the Mount Barker district. The
highway at this point made a
Eagle-onthe-Hill
sharp turn to the right and began
climbing the side of the Glen
Osmond. Later, in the 1860s,
when a long deviation was
completed to make the upward
climb easier, the name Devil’s
Elbow, which had originally
applied to a nasty turn further
up the road, was transferred to
the lower bend – which had now
itself become even sharper – at
the gateway to the garden. All this
Figure 17.3
1936 aerial photograph showing George Stevenson’s garden
(centre).
SOURCE
Reproduced courtesy of the Australian Army
and the GIS laboratory, Flinders University.
is explained in Bill Stacy’s chapter The Great Eastern Road in this volume.
The site of the garden had a good supply of water from the Glen Osmond Creek and the springs
that fed it, and from the wells that were dug. The soil was rich, and the road provided easy access to
Adelaide. The road’s sixth milestone, counting from the GPO, was opposite the gate. It was an ideal
site for a garden, for purposes of commerce, experiment, and tourism, and this was taken
advantage of for many years.
It did not take long for Stevenson to make an impression in his new garden, for by 1846,
according to Elizabeth Warburton, ‘the nursery could offer 30,000 rooted vines, 300 figs and 100
Jordan almond trees. Soon it had all the stone fruit and nut trees of the northern hemisphere, and
was offering vines and hops at 60s and 10s per hundred’ (Warburton 1981: 103).
According to Manning’s Place Names of South Australia (1990), the name Leawood was given by
Mrs. Gorton, and came from Devon. When Mrs. Gorton died in 1855 she left the property to Mrs.
Stevenson. When George Stevenson himself died in October 1856, at the age of 57, his wife held
George Stevenson’s Garden 291
onto the garden, and their daughter, Margaret Jane, inherited it from her mother when she in turn
died in 1874. In 1868 Margaret Jane had married Ernest De Mole, a member of the colony’s civil
service. When she brought the land under the Real Property Act in December 1875, it was valued at
£1,000 (GRO 1875).
Meanwhile, following George Stevenson’s death, the garden was leased out to various figures. A
newspaper article stated that:
After Mr Stevenson’s time, the garden became very neglected, falling into the hands of a carpenter, who perhaps
understood more about the saw and plane than he did about the spade and pruning-knife ... the garden had become a
perfect wilderness – the nursery stock of trees of all kinds had grown up into a kind of hedge or thicket; the fruit-trees
had sent up suckers from their roots and formed a jungle, whilst their branches had become thoroughly interlaced.
Register 30 April 1881
Then it happened that while Margaret Jane was owner from 1874 onwards, the garden was
leased in 1877 to the renowned rose grower Edwin Smith, who was owner of the Clifton Nursery in
Walkerville (Observer 23 November 1878). It had been leased to him ‘after many vicissitudes’,
referring to the neglect noted above. The garden, named by this time as the ‘oldest garden existing
in the colony’, was nevertheless well established, and it was described in great detail in the
Observer. When Smith took over the garden there were:
A number of large and well-grown English trees, such as the ash, elm, oak, sycamore, lime, walnut, &c. Many trees and
shrubs in this garden can doubtless lay claim to have been the original stock from which hundreds of other gardens have
been enriched, and there are several kinds that cannot be excelled for size and beauty in this colony. The gate of Mr.
Smith’s garden lies temptingly in the way of any one travelling up the Mount Barker-road, in a nook formed by a sudden
and sharp curve. Directly the gate is entered the visitor is compelled to stoop to avoid coming into collision with the
walnut branches loaded with green walnuts which overhang the gateway. The yield of this tree is great, a ton or so of
walnuts being gathered every year, some when green for pickling and the rest when dry for dessert. There is a
remarkable walnut-tree not far from the gate, which many years ago was blown down in a tremendous storm, but some
of the roots were left in the ground, and the old tree sent up a number of strong branches, which spring up straight from
its prostrate trunk and are like a line of walnut trees. Behind these are some very large magnolias, and the dense shrubs
and trees hide from view the steep hill which rises immediately behind them.
Observer 23 November 1878
However, Smith had to deal with:
A great deal of old rubbish – unprofitable fruit-trees, suckers grown up into trees, and useless and unsaleable “stock”
which had been planted into nursery-beds years ago and allowed to grow into a thick tangled mass – [and which] has yet
to be removed before the garden can be got into thorough working order.
It was Smith who began the serious business of growing camellias at Leawood Gardens, for
which the property became quite famous. When Professor E.G. Waterhouse visited the gardens in
1946 he counted 104 varieties, and before the devastating 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfire, another
camellia enthusiast counted 113 (Sendy ca.1998:70).
In Smith’s time in 1881 there was a house near the entrance of the garden in which Henry
(Harry), the son of Edwin, lived. However, there were no glasshouses or shade-houses (Register
30 April 1881). It was reported that the total area of the garden was 45 acres, of which more than 25
were cultivated. The size of the property varied over time, with trading of portions of the Section,
292 Valleys of Stone
especially with persons associated with the Eagle-on-the-Hill Hotel.
It was probably during Smith’s lease that the garden became much visited by the public. There
were for sale various nursery items and the produce from fruit trees. It was not long before the
strawberries for sale could be consumed on site with cream. For these reasons and for its beauty the
garden became a major destination for excursionists. This period was before the rise of the motor
car and meant that the journey to Leawood Gardens, which soon became known as Smith’s Gardens
as well, was still far enough away from the city or the inner suburbs to be a special excursion that
people undertook at weekends or on holidays.
The Critic of December 1897 recorded that:
A most enjoyable drag picnic was given last Saturday by Mr and Mrs Higgins of Port Elliott. The guests met at the North
Terrace Institute at 2.30 and drove to Stevenson’s Strawberry Gardens, Glen Osmond, where afternoon tea and supper
were partaken of in the beautiful garden which was illuminated with Chinese lanterns.
Quoted in Warburton 1981:103
At that time excursionists might consider a tram journey to the Glen Osmond terminus,
followed by an hour’s walk to the garden.
Between about 1874 and 1914 the garden continued to draw crowds. However, in the early
1900s, with the rise of motorised transport and the novelty of being able to travel further afield in a
day, Leawood Gardens steadily fell out of popularity and was eventually put up for sale. Warburton
writes:
A sale notice of June 1914 gives a few details of the property at that time. It was … eighty acres in extent, thirty-five under
fruit, and it was earning revenue from sales of fruit, flowers, grazing and refreshment to travellers. There was a sixroomed house, stabling and shed. ‘Price walk in walk out, £350’ .
Warburton 1981:104
The property did not sell, even at that low price – a fraction of what it was valued at in 1875 –
perhaps because this was in the period of the commencement of World War I. The current owners,
the granddaughters of George and Margaret Stevenson, therefore decided the property could
provide them with a livelihood or at least an exciting new venture. It was observed that until they
took over the garden, not one of the family in more than 70 years had ever resided on the property,
although when Edwin Smith operated his nursery, his son Henry had lived there.
The Mail of October 1915 noted that:
Miss Evelyn de Mole ... and Miss Eva Laughton … have recently taken over the management, and are now working it as a
flower farm and fruit garden, while they cater for the public according to the traditions of the place.
The rich flat beyond the orange trees is being arranged as a rose garden, while the masses of annuals planted in broad
beds should be a beautiful sight before long. Flower farming by women, which is now a recognised occupation for
gentlewomen in England, is a new enterprise in South Australia, and should be encouraged as such.
Mail 2 October 1915
The women needed visitors to make their enterprise a success. The article by the Mail did much
to describe the attractions such as the ‘moss-grown walks between old gnarled cherry and pear
trees, and … the huge walnuts, chestnuts, and elms, which must be the largest in South Australia. In
George Stevenson’s Garden 293
August the camellias alone are worth a visit, as this fine collection must number some 200 shrubs.
There are paths, worn by the feet of past generations, known by such names as “The Cherry Walk”,
“The Camellia Walk”, “The Mulberry Dell” [there was a famously gigantic mulberry called “The
Picnic Tree”], “The Oak Walk’’, and “The Lovers’ Walk”, where runs a little stream, whose banks just
now are a mass of white iris. Rustic tables and chairs are arranged invitingly under the spreading
walnut and chestnut trees, while the dainty teas and the strawberries and cream are things to
remember ... one can even forget the war in this peaceful flower-scented spot’ (Mail 2 October
1915).
After World War I, in May of 1919, the property came up for sale again. The granddaughters
had persisted with their experiment for just four or five years. The Register carried an extensive
description of the Gardens in favourable terms:
Leawood has been known as a popular beauty and pleasure resort and strawberry gardens for quite 50 years, and its
magnificent walnut and chestnut trees are quite celebrated … The soil, rich black and red loam, will grow anything,
according to experts, who suggest olives, oranges, fruit of all kinds, while the camellia collection at Leawood is admitted
to be the finest in the State. A creek runs through the property, there are also wells, but there is a water system laid on
over a considerable portion of the estate, including the rich flat, which is supplied by bore water of first-class quality and
of inexhaustible volume … The quaint well-built stone cottage is very cool in summer and cosy in winter, and, with
recent additions, is equal to a seven-roomed house, with a huge cool storeroom. No more delightful property can be
imagined for a private estate, while it is ideal for subdivision into market gardeners’ blocks, being so close to town on a
downhill road to the city markets.
Register 21 April 1919
When the Register later reminded the public that the property was to be auctioned at
Brookman’s Wool Exchange on 7 May, it was pointed out that it had been in the possession of four
generations of women from the same family. Further, to encourage that the property be sold, it was
noted that it could be subdivided into residential sites (Register 1 May 1919).
However, it is believed that a surgical instrument maker, Vauser, bought the property on one
title from the de Mole sisters. The next owner was a Kuhlmann. Then in 1944 the Sendy family
bought the property, and in 1950 they sold it to the Traeger family, who owned it until 1988.
John Sendy, whose parents held Leawood Gardens in the late 1940s, quipped that:
… not so well known is the fact that for several post-war years the second house on the property, a two-story
weatherboard cottage, provided a haven for Adelaide Communists where romantic and hopeful young activists studied
theory and tactics – earnest and decent folk with their feet firmly planted in the air, magnificently scornful of any
suggestion that their efforts would ultimately prove to be futile. They enjoyed Leawood, too .
Sendy ca.1998:71
In the Traegers’ time the owners still sold camellias, nuts and fruit from the old garden that now
faced ‘a swirling stream of motor vehicles on the bitumen four-lane Adelaide-Melbourne highway’
(Warburton 1981:104). But the great days were over.
The Ash Wednesday bushfires of 1983 swept through the Adelaide Hills and other parts of the
State, causing much damage and killing 26 people. At Leawood Gardens many of the trees and
shrubs and two cottages were destroyed. While the main house survived the fire, it was eventually
294 Valleys of Stone
Figure 17.4
Devil’s Elbow, Leawood Gardens 1949
Courtesy of the State Library of South Australia SLSA:B23553
demolished in the late 1990s for the new freeway construction, and most of the remaining garden
was then cleared away (Sendy c.1998:68-69).
John Sendy stated that, after the bushfire, only 66 camellias had survived by the time Transport
SA took over the property. A spirited campaign by a small group to save the remaining camellias
saw them take cuttings which were successfully planted at the National Trust’s and Camellia
Research Society’s property of Stangate House at Aldgate. This was followed by the successful
transplantation of about two dozen more camellias outside the District Council Chambers in
Stirling (Sendy c.1998:70-71).
Scattered throughout South Australia there must be other plants or scions of plants that had
their genesis in the Leawood garden. These, with the few trees and shrubs remaining on site, are the
horticultural remnant of this historically important enterprise.
Various motivations had been played out in the one-and-a-half centuries of the garden’s
existence. The plants were to be treated as a commercial venture, or a subject for experiments in
acclimatisation, and the garden as a focus for excursions, or a retreat amidst beauty. The fortunes of
the garden rose and fell, partly due to the intentions or abilities of its managers. And the site of the
garden, on the main road into the Hills, was originally an advantage, but ultimately its undoing.
George Stevenson’s Garden 295
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank Geoffrey H. Manning for access to his Data Base of
South Australian History. For help with this chapter I also
thank Patricia Sumerling, and Jack Warin of the Mount
Lofty Districts Historical Society.
REFERENCES
Express 29 September 1874.
Mail 2 October 1915.
Manning, Geoffrey H. 1990 Manning’s Place Names of South
Australia, The Author, Adelaide.
Marsden, Susan, P. Stark, P. Sumerling 1990 Heritage of the
City of Adelaide; an illustrated guide, Corporation of the
City of Adelaide, Adelaide.
Observer 23 November 1878.
Register 13 August 1842, 20 October 1856, 30 April 1881,
21 April 1919, 1 May 1919.
Sendy, John, At the Devil’s Elbow (article circa 1998 from
Hortus, photocopy held by Mount Lofty Districts
Historical Society).
Warburton, Elizabeth, 1981 The Paddocks Beneath, A
History of Burnside from the beginning, Corporation of
the City of Burnside, Adelaide.
ARCHIVES
General Registry Office (GRO) 22-23/8/1842 Lease &
release to Margaret Gorton (Dep. No. 113 of 1855
Reg. 226/2); Real Property Application No. 14743, 10/
12/1875.