Martindale Hall

Martindale Hall was finished in 1880 for a young pastoralist who had money from wool and, by most accounts, spent it fast. The house is a symmetrical two-storey block in a Georgian revival manner, set on a rise outside the slate village of Mintaro with no avenue of trees and no neighbours, and that is what makes it odd: a stiff English country house dropped into dry South Australian paddocks. Inside, the main rooms kept much of their furniture, and the service areas below stairs are intact enough to show how the place was run. It has been used as a film location, which is how many Australians recognise it without knowing the name.

History

The house was built for the young bachelor pastoralist Edmund Bowman Jr to a design by Ebenezer Gregg of London and finished in 1880 by the builder R. Huckson, with 50 of its 60 tradesmen brought from England, and its grounds once held a polo ground, a racecourse, a boating lake and a cricket pitch. Debt and drought forced the Bowmans to sell a decade later, and William Tennant Mortlock bought it in 1891; his son John filled it with art and left it to the University of Adelaide, which received it in 1979 on the death of his widow Dorothy and passed it with 19 hectares to the state in 1986, and on 5 December 1991 the land became the Martindale Hall Conservation Park (Wikipedia, Martindale Hall).

The main sights

• The main rooms - drawing room, dining room and library holding much of the original furniture.
• The service floor - kitchens and staff areas showing how the house was actually run.
• The exterior setting - a plain classical block standing in open paddocks with no screening trees.
• Mintaro village - the nearby settlement built from the slate quarried alongside it.

When to go

Spring and autumn give the best combination of mild weather and green surroundings; a stone house without air conditioning is uncomfortable in a South Australian summer. Opening days have varied over recent years and the house has closed for periods, so confirm before making the drive. It pairs naturally with a day in the Clare Valley, which fills up on long weekends.

Things to know

The house has had an unsettled recent history, with closures and changes of operator, and the standard of presentation has moved around with it. Some rooms are roped off. There is no cafe on site and Mintaro is tiny. Anyone expecting a grand European interior will find a comfortable colonial one instead. Check it is open before committing to the two hour drive.

Nearby

Mintaro, the Clare Valley cellar doors and Burra's mine sites are all within an hour.

Key facts