Hahndorf

Just a short post today, but experience has taught me that it's far easier, and takes me far less time, to post as I go along rather than letting things build up over a few days.

I am back in Adelaide again now after two wonderful days in the Adelaide Hills with my friends there.  On my way back to Adelaide I stopped at a little town called Hahndorf, which is about a 20 minute drive from Adelaide.

Hahndorf is classified as Australia's oldest surviving German settlement.  The town was settled by Lutheran migrants largely from a small village then named Kay in Prussia, many of whom were aboard the Zebra which arrived in Australia in 1838.  The town is named Hahndorf (Hahn's Town) in honour of the captain of the Zebra, Dirk Meinhertz Hahn.
German influence is very apparent in Hahndorf and is seen physically in the traditional fachwerk architecture of the original surviving buildings. There are also many restaurants in the town serving German cuisine.

The first group of settlers arrived in the area in 1839.  They cleared the bush and planted vegetables which the women carried in baskets attached to yokes across their shoulders to sell in Adelaide.  In 1840 the settlers built a roomy Lutheran church of wattle and daub with a roof thatched with kangaroo grass.  The current church (St. Michael's) was built around this first church in 1858 and the original church was demolished.

St. Paul's Lutheran Church was built in 1890.

St. Paul's Church of England was dedicated in 1886 to provide a spiritual home for the growing numbers of Anglicans in the village.

The Hahndorf Academy was established in 1857 by T.W. Boehm as a school of higher learning.  It was the first government supported primary school, with the object of providing 'a sound and good English and German education, in order to enable its pupils to enter the learned professions, or to prepare them for commercial life.' 
Fees were charged at 2 guineas a quarter for day-scholars and from 10 to 13 guineas for boarders.
The school was initially located in a single-storey cottage which is still standing on the site today at the rear of this larger building. The school grew in size and prestige, becoming a secondary boarding college in 1871 when the two-storey building was built.