LILYDALE

 

1/ The Lilydale Falls are in north eastern Tasmania. This photo shows the car park, which has many lovely trees lining the edges.

2/ The Lilydale Falls walk begins under the old railway bridge. It is a short easy walk to Lilydale Falls.

3/ A new foot bridge takes the trail to Lilydale Falls across the creek.

4/ The trail follows a gently flowing stream to the Lilydale Falls.

5/ The lower falls of Lilydale were quite impressive.

6/ You can then walk a short distance to the Upper Falls of Lilydale.

7/ An easy climb then takes you to the top of the upper falls of Lilydale.

 

1/ The little town of Lilydale is in north eastern Tasmania. It was built by German immigrants in 1870. Lilydale has some interesting sights and is just 3 kilometres south of the Lilydale Falls.

2/ Bardenhagen's general store at Lilydale was built in 1888. It is heritage listed by the National Trust.

3/ This stylish building is the 1955 Memorial Hall. It was built by local volunteers.

4/ The Lilydale post office was in the 1900s style.

5/ This old church at Lilydale was a good example of the Victorian country style.

6/ This old shop in Lilydale was now selling antiques.

7/ I was impressed to find a surviving, unaltered Art Deco style service station at Lilydale. This was the first type of service station built for the growing car numbers in the 1930s.

8/ This is a middle class home of the 1920s near the town of Lilydale.

9/ This building at Lilydale is the old druids Hall. These druids were a lodge of like minded residents.

10/ This is the late 19th Century Church of the Ascension. It was located close to the old railway station.

11/ On the southern edge of Lilydale is the Catholic Church of St Anne. It was built in 1891.

12/ East of Lilydale are meadows and the slopes of Mount Arthur. There are great mountain views from many positions around Lilydale.

13/ This is the view from the remains of the old railway station. Sadly it is decades since a train ran on this line.

14/ In October 2011 Lilydale held a fair to celebrated its 150th anniversary. One interesting sight was the old car display of these classic holdens.

15/ The classic cars included this FJ Holden, which was the first car to be mass produced in Australia.

16/ The fair at Lilydale included this interesting moving sculpture.

17/ Lebrina is a hamlet north of Lilydale on the main B81 Road. It has this lovely church called St Andrews, which was built in 1891. The number of churches in the Lilydale area shows how important religion was to people in the 19th Century.

18/ St Andrews has this lovely stain glass window.

19/ The next 4 photos were taken in 2016 on an open day at the old Wesleyan Church at Underwood. This is a locality south of Lilydale.

20/ The Wesleyan Church was built in 1883, but in recent decades it was turned into a residence. Very recently it was developed as a beautiful garden.

21/ This image looks up the hill passed the garden and shows the clear shape of the old church.

22/ This cottage was the old manse. It too has been restored and now complements the garden.

 

1/ Windermere is a locality just north east of Launceston and west of Lilydale. It is just west of the A8 East Tamar Highway. It boasts of having St Matthias, one of the loveliest churches in Tasmania. Dilston is just south of Windermere.

2/ St Matthias was built in 1842 by Dr Gaunt to fulfill a promise that he made to his wife before they left England. This was that he would build her a church in the new colony of Van Diemens Land, if there was not one extant. The church was a river church, as many of the worshippers came to it by boat down the Tamar River. As you can see, St Matthias Windermere has a great vista of the Tamar River. Many worshippers came from the other side.

3/ This is the lovely, well restored interior of St Matthias. It is quite authentic to the 19th Century.

4/ These are the three stain glass windows above the altar. The one on the right is quite unusual in that it pictures Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus.

5/ This is the view looking from St Matthias south down the peaceful Tamar River. The houses across the river are in the locality of Rosevears.

6/ This is the view looking to the north of the Tamar River at Windermere.

7/ The country around Windermere consists of rolling hills used for grazing or for vineyards. The locality across the Tamar River in this photo is Gravelly Beach.

8/ North of Windermere is the remains of an old jetty. This was once used to export slate from Bangor to Melbourne. This view looks west across the Tamar River towards Paper Beach.

9/ On the both the eastern and western shores of the Tamar River are attractive houses with great views of the Tamar River.

10/ This view looks north west towards Deviot. Just beyond Deviot is the great Batman Bridge.

11/ This view looks east towards Mt Direction. A signal tower located here once passed semaphore messages from George Town on towards Launceston.

12/ This is the ancient hotel at Dilston. It was built around 1825. This makes it amongst the oldest buildings in Launceston. The timber part at the front was added in 1879.

13/ This image shows another view of the hotel. This section was built with local stone worked by convicts in 1825.

14/ This is the Dilston school which is now a hall.

 

1/ Bangor is located west of Lilydale in north eastern Tasmania. Bangor was once a major centre of the slate processing industry. The town died when iron panels replaced slate. Ironically, this surviving church is made out of the very iron panels that destroyed Bangor's livelihood in the olden days.

2/ The size of the church at Bangor proclaims that it once served a large community. The ugly box on the side is a later day air conditioner.

3/ This grave close to the church at Bangor shows a considerable expense in the marble work.

4/ The grave yard had a variety of old and new graves. Beyond it is one of the surviving houses of Bangor. It was once a hall.

5/ The white on this unnaturally flat area indicates that large buildings once occupied this site at Bangor.

6/ This is the view from the hill where the church is located to the valley below. The derelict houses shown in the next photo are on the extreme left.

7/ These buildings are the survivors of old Bangor. The one on the left was the police station and jail and the one on the right was the town hall. They are in a good enough condition to be restored.

8/ The road to Bangor has a very ancient feeling about it. The peak on the right is Mt Bessells.

9/ This is a photo of Mt Bessells taken over grazing land near Bangor.

10/ This tunnel was once dug to determine the extent of the slate deposits. It is one of a number of signs that Bangor was once the scene of a major mining industry. It is quite dangerous to enter old tunnels. This tunnel, plus a number of slate mines on the same trail, would make an interesting tourist attraction, if it was restored.

11/ This is the view from the bottom of an old slate mine to the top. The broken slate at the bottom is the debris of the slate tiles made here in the late 19th Century.

12/ This ancient path leads to other slate mines. Unfortunately this trail was completely overgrown, when we visited it in 2015. There is a great adventure trail here just waiting to be restored.

13/ Bangor was once connected to the Tamar River by a tramway. This was used to take the heavy slate tiles to the ships for export. This field near Bangor shows the remains of the old tramway in the slight rise that you can see.

14/ This is the lovely, gardiner's cottage at City Park in Launceston. The roof is made of slate tiles from Bangor. As you can see, these slate tiles are still in good condition, even after 130 years of weathering.

 

1/ Lisle is a former gold mining town that has now totally disappeared. It exploded into existence in 1879 with the discovery of gold and then grew to become the third largest town in Tasmania. In its boom days it had over 2000 people. However, very soon confidence waned and the population declined, until it finally disappeared. To the west of Lisle is Mt Arthur. This mountain can be seen from Launceston. This photo was taken about 4 kilometres south of Lisle. This area is now replete with pine plantations, which are regularly harvested.

2/ The image shows Mt Barrow, which is south of Lisle. It was taken from the chimney ruins of Alfred Bessell's house, seen in image 19. The photo clearly shows how the pines are planted, grown and then harvested.

3/ To the east of Lisle is Mt Bessells. This photo was taken from the former airstrip on the top of Mt Bessells. It looks towards the north east coast and to the Sidling Range.

4/ This view is from the Mt Bessells airstrip is looking towards the south east. Note the pine plantations interrupting the natural forest.

5/ Lisle was located about 400 metres down this ancient, overgrown road. It was bush bashing from this point.

6/ Finding this ancient bridge gave us a precise reference point. We were now in the centre of the old town. The bridge was very unsafe to cross. In 1880 there were dozens of wooden buildings around this bridge. The last resident was Maud Faulkner, a lady born in the boom times of Lisle. She left the ghost town of Lisle in 1963.

7/ This was the same bridge in May 2017 just 2 years later. A major flood in the intervening years had washed away the top. This rapid change shows how quickly edifices can disappear.

8/ On all sides of the old bridge of Lisle the ground was very disturbed. There were signs of ancient buildings everywhere. A visitor should be very wary of falling down hidden mine shafts.

9/ On the northern side of Lisle the road became quite open again. Disturbed ground was all around us.

10/ This is the dam south east of the town of Lisle. It was used to power a saw mill in the 1890s. The wheel is no longer extant, but we could see in dense vegetation, where it had once been located.

11/ This road led to the Lisle approach track above. On the side of the road in spring jonquil flowers appeared. We found evidence of houses on both sides of this road. These flowers are the last remnant of the gardens planted by the ladies of Lisle, way back in the 1880s. I returned in the spring just to see this phenomena.

12/ This three way junction was about 2 kilometres south east of Lisle. We found evidence of mines in this area, but sadly the pine plantation has destroyed most of evidence of what was once here.

13/ Geometric lines of pine trees now cover most of Lisle.

14/ Amongst the pines we found this water course. It would have once been used by the miners of old Lisle.

15/ Near the main street of Lisle we found this grove of ancient European trees. They would have once marked the boundary of someone's property. Beyond them was the cemetery and to the left of these trees was a dam, which you can see below.

16/ This embankment forms a dam, which was fed by a long water course. We think that it was built in the 20th Century to power pressure hoses.

17/ This was the track that led northwards towards the cemetery. We noted the position of this tree, because it was very close to the grave shown below.

18/ We found no headstones, because they are hidden under the dense undergrowth. However, we did find this marked grave, plus an empty grave. We guessed that they were built by people in recent decades, who wanted to be buried in old Lisle.

19/ Loggers had told us of their discovery of this chimney. We believed that it is the remains of the home of Alfred Bessell, brother of the man who discovered gold at Lisle. The house would have had a magnificent view of the valley of Lisle and the mountains beyond.

20/ This was the last house extant at Lisle, where old Maud Faulkner lived. She was the last resident of Lisle and left in 1963. It was demolished around 1964 by a man, who believed a rumor that there was gold under old Maud's house.

21/ This image looks up the Old Lisle Road from Maud Faulkner's house to the grove of trees shown in image 15.

22/ This image looks towards the main street of Lisle. The costume of the children suggests that it was taken about 1930. This was long after the boom time of Lisle. Once these paddocks would have been replete with houses, buildings, shacks and tents.

23/ This image shows the dedication of the soldiers memorial hall in 1921. It is looking towards the west. Note how the trees above the building are not pines. Unfortunately, no photos have emerged of what Lisle looked like in its boom time.

24/ This is another view of the dedication of the hall. It probably shows most of the population of Lisle at that time.

25/ This image shows the Collins House in Lisle. There would once have been dozens of similar houses at Lisle in the boom time.

26/. This image shows the Hudson's Mill at Lisle. It was taken about 1920. Noteworthy is the huge stump shown before the mill. There were once huge, 90 metre high eucalyptus trees in this area, which now are sadly all gone. You can see some of these trees on my Mathinna - Evercreech Forest page.

27/ The approach to Lisle passes the picnic ground of Myrtle Park. The ground has all the facilities needed by travellers and is situated close to a lovely stream.

28/ This is the view of Mt Barrow taken from near Myrtle Park on the road returning from Lisle.

 

1/ Turners Marsh and Karoola are adjacent localities just west of Lilydale in north eastern Tasmania. This area has some lovely rural landscapes, plus some interesting, historic buildings. This photo shows the Catholic church of the Sacred Heart at Karoola. It is a proud example of the Federation style of architecture, which was popular in Tasmania around the 1890s. It shows how important religion was in the 19th Century that there are 2 historic churches in this area. Note that there are no facilities in Turners Marsh - Karoola.

2/ This is the rear view of the Sacred Heart Church at Karoola. It looks down into the valley of Turners Marsh. It is culturally significant that the Catholic and Protestant churches in this area were on opposite hills to each other.

3/ This is a telephoto view of the Sacred Heart Church taken from the opposite hill, where the Uniting Church is located. Note the lovely rural landscape.

4/ This is the Uniting Church on the western side of Turners Marsh. It is simpler than the Catholic Church and is probably older, since it was built in 1879. Note that behind the church is a graveyard.

5/ This is the graveyard behind the Uniting Church at Turners Marsh. It had some very, old graves of the early settlers of Turners Marsh and Karoola.

6/ Turners Marsh is a lowland surrounded by highlands. This view looks towards the highlands.

7/ This view shows the rich, meadows of the lowlands.

8/ This derelict shed was once the dance hall and the military, drill hall of the district.

9/ This is an attractive Federation style house that has been added to over the years. There were some very old farm buildings adjacent to it.

10/ This historic building was originally a shop. The window on the right would once have displayed wares. The extension to the building on the left was a more modern style shop.

11/ This is a derelict Victorian era cottage. There would once have been many other cottages in this area.

12/ This is the hall at Turners Marsh. To the left of it is a sports oval. It has a roof, an extension and an outer cladding that dates from the 1960s, but the shape and the door show that it was originally built in the 19th Century.

13/ This is a view of Mt Arthur taken on the road to the locality of Tunnel. This was once a town that was founded to build a large tunnel for the railway to Scottsdale.

14/ This is the railway track that leads to the tunnel. You have to walk down it to find the tunnel. We were glad to find that vegetation had not yet overgrown the railway. You will need local knowledge to reach the tunnel, which is also unsafe.

15/ This is the northern entrance to the tunnel. The tunnel is about 400 metres in length. The tunnel was flooded, so it was unsafe to enter it, as snakes are common in such places. Note that this tunnel was built in 1888.

16/ This is the southern entrance. You can see in this photo that the tunnel is flooded. I think that if it was restored, it would be of interest to tourists.

17/ This is the remains of the station at Tunnel. There were once many buildings around this area.

18/ This derelict cottage is the last house that exists from the old days of the town of Tunnel.