Adelaide, South Australia
Birdwood
Birdwood is a pretty town in the Adelaide Hills serving a small farming community.Where is it?: Adelaide Hills. 44 km east of Adelaide.
Birdwood does not have its own visitor centre but information about the town can be obtained at either the Mount Lofty Summit Visitors Information Centre, Crafers, tel: (08) 8370 1054 or the Adelaide Hills Visitor Information Centre, 68 Mount Barker Road, Hahndorf, tel: (08) 8388 1185. or 1800 353 323.
There are a number of attractive historic buildings in town. The Birdwood Primary School is a real work of art with particularly beautiful iron lacework. The Birdwood craft shop next to the Motor Museum is another attractive building. Built in 1865 Blumberg Inn dominates the townscape.
Blumberg Inn was built as a single storey hotel and was first named, amusingly, the Napoleon Bonaparte reputedly because some of the local citizens had fought with Bonaparte. It has changed many times (note the car in the front) but by the 1880s it had been turned into the two storey bluestone building with impressive ironwork and a charming upstairs balcony which can be seen today. It is now a central part of the town's main street.
Birdwood Mill - the National Motor Museum
The major tourist attraction in town is located in the old Blumberg flour mill (1852). It is one of the most impressive collections of vintage cars in the country having been started in 1964 by Jack Kaines and Len Vigar and being purchased by the South Australian government in 1976. The collection has over 200 vehicles including such valuable items as a 1910 Daimler, a 1929 Bentley and an 1899 Shearer Steam Car. Enthusiasts can purchase a 90 page catalogue which lists and describes all the vehicles.- More
Birdwood is the destination of the Bay to Birdwood Classic, a classic car drive from Glenelg Beach to Birdwood, held every September, which attracts hundreds of participants from all corners of Australia.
Natural features: Torrens River; Blumberg Creek; Williams Creek
Heritage features: Blumberg Inn (1865, originally known as the Napoleon Bonaparte, apparently because some early settlers had been conscripted into Napoleon's army while still living in Silesia); Birdwood Primary School.
Adelaide Hills Wine Region
Wine grapes were first planted in the Adelaide hills in the early 1840s. Situated east of Adelaide, the long and narrow Adelaide Hills region runs through the southern Mt. Lofty ranges. It is one of South Australia's largest wine growing regions, stretching from the edge of the Barossa and Eden Valleys in the north, to the boundaries of McLaren Vale and Langhorne Creek in the South. The high altitude combines brilliantly with the favourable climate, to allow grapes to mature at a slower pace than other regions, giving the wines intense elegant flavours and characteristics.One of the earliest wineries and vineyards in the area is mentioned in the Adelaide papers for sale as follows: 1865 - Swithen Farmer - Section 6131 "Chain of Ponds". Winemakers plant complete with several thousand gallons of wine, wine presses, fermenting vats, casks, large boilers. Wine vintages 1863-1865. 16 acres of vineyard.
About Birdwood
Brief history: The village came into existence in the 1840s when Lutherans fleeing persecution in Silesia settled in the area. The land was owned by George Fife Angas and the South Australian Land Company and was leased to a number of German settlers who,by 1853, had named the town Blumberg after a small village in Prussia. It is claimed that J. G. Bluemel laid out and named the town.By the 1850s the town was prospering. The area was producing enough grain to justify the construction of the Blumberg flour Mill (now the National Motor Museum) in 1852 - the flour mill was built by Captain William Randell who was the first paddlesteamer captain on the Murray River - and gold had been discovered on the upper reaches of the Torrens River attracting prospectors to the area. As a consequence of this the local Lutheran Church was completed and the Blumberg Inn (opposite the Motor Museum) was completed in 1865.
Blumberg is one of the many examples of towns which changed their names as a result of intense anti-German feeling during World War I. It was renamed Birdwood after Sir William Birdwood who commanded the Anzacs at Gallipoli and the Fifth British Army in France.
Origin of name: recalls Sir William Birdwood who commanded the Anzacs at Gallipoli and the Fifth British Army in France. The town was originally called Blumberg after a small village in Prussia which is close to the river route used by the Silesian pioneers on their way from the likes of Zullichau and Klemzig.
The town's name was changed during World War I because of anti-German sentiment. It is claimed that J. G. Bluemel, one of the German Lutheran migrants, laid out and named the town. Unlike Lobethal and Hahndorf, the town did not revert back to its original German name.
