Adelaide : Kingston Map

Map of Adelaide as surveyed by GS Kingston showing buildings in the city (South Adelaide) and North Adelaide, with a number of references to the nature of the premises or owners. Cemeteries are indicated by annotations. The map includes a key to construction materials, which indicate whether the building is of brick or stone, wooden, pise or lath and plaster and whether the building has a verandah or not. Minute circles locate wells in North Adelaide.

The location of Government House and the Governor's garden, the Botanical Gardens, Signal Station, Emigrant camp for new arrivals, the cemetery, and the Aborigines location are shown as well as the site of the Sappers and Miners adjacent to Government House.

The map features 7 buildings erected in Adelaide at that time, four of which still stand today, although modified from the original concept.

Holy Trinity Church

This church on North Terrace at the corner of Morphett Street was to have been a prefabricated wooden building which was sent out from England. However this was found to be rotten and a stone building was planned. The foundation stone was laid 26 January 1838 by Governor Hindmarsh and construction completed by that August. It was the colony's first church, and was enlarged in 1845 and 1889. The clock was installed shortly thereafter as no other suitable building was available. By 1844 the church building was declared unsafe, and partially rebuilt, with higher walls and a new turret. There is a stained glass window dated 1836 which is all that remains of the original prefabricated building sent out from England. In the 1880s architect Edward John Woods made further alterations in which the height of the tower was increased, and the walls raised. The tower was topped with pinnacles and the walls were buttressed. The building materials are limestone and sandstone.

Government House

South Australia's first governor John Hindmarsh lived in a thatched hut with one fireplace. His successor George Gawler appointed a board to consider a new residence. Kingston was a member of this board. The new Government House had 12 rooms, was two storeys high, and was built of stone quarried from along the River Torrens. This building was completed in 1840, and much of it still survives today. A two storey extension was added in 1855-56, and further extensions continued throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Government House is on a prominent site at the corner of North Terrace and King William Road and adjacent to Parliament House.

Adelaide Gaol

Designed by George Strickland Kingston, Adelaide Gaol is one of the oldest remaining buildings in Adelaide. Building began in 1840 with limestone quarried from along the River Torrens. Red brick was used for the interior walls and was made on site. Building was protracted by disputes and the second half of the gaol was built between 1847 and 1850. Alterations were made to the building 1862-64 and again in 1880, but these were in sympathy with the original work.

Government Office (Treasury Building)

Only the site, at the corner of King William and Flinders Streets, part of a wall and an arched window, together with the vaults, furnace and well remain of the original government offices, which were first constructed in 1839, and designed by George Strickland Kingston. Designed in an oblong with a central courtyard the building was essentially rebuilt between 1858 and 1907. It housed the Colonial Secretary, Treasurer, Accountant general, the Land Office and Survey Office. During the Victorian gold rush, the armed gold escorts delivered their loads here, where the gold was smelted into ingots in the vaults below. Today the building has been sensitively restored and refurbished as the Medina Serviced Apartments.

Congregational Chapel

Built in Freeman Street (later Gawler Place) this was the first Congregational Church in South Australia and was subsequently replaced by Stow Memorial Church in Flinders Street. The Chapel was then used by a number of businesses before being subsumed in the ING Building in Pirie Street.

South Australian School Society

This occupied a site on North Terrace. Tenders were called in December 1839. Prescott and Hancock designed the building, but it was never used as a school, which operated from Light Square instead.

Bank of South Australia

The Bank of South Australia was a part of the South Australian Company which was established in 1835. It was legally separated from its parent body in 1841, and granted a royal charter in 1847. In 1866 the Bank purchased a new site in King William Street, but the building was not built until 1875 and the North Terrace site sold in 1878. The new building was designed by Edmund Wright, and in the 1970s a public campaign saved the building from demolition. It was renamed Edmund Wright House in honour of the prominent early Adelaide architect.

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