SLSA catalogueCatalogue recordSLSA referenceAngas-Town, German Pass [map]
Details
TitleAngastonDatendDescription
In December 1837 Colonel William Light led a small exploratory party north of Adelaide looking for a suitable route to the River Murray. He discovered an area he would call the Barossa Valley and the Barossa Range. It contained some of the finest land in South Australia. A Special Survey of the region was conducted in 1840 and George Fife Angas, founder of the South Australian Company, acquired 11,000 hectares. In 1843 his son John Howard Angas immigrated to South Australia to manage his father's lands with George Fife himself arriving in South Australia in 1851.
Angas Town was nestled in the German Pass: the original village comprised only one house and several dug-outs, but this quickly increased. George French Angas (another son of George Fife), in his painting of Angaston created around 1844, shows a number of houses made of a variety of materials including timber and pug with slate, shingle or thatched roofs. A stream and a cart track are visible. A chapel for multi-denominational use was constructed in 1843-4 of locally quarried stone and was Angaston's first public building. With its rich soil, harvests were good and the village thrived. Vines were planted along with other fruits and wine was produced early. This was the beginning of the valley's wine industry. Other trades and industries including a large mill also thrived and Angaston, as it was now being called, became a service centre for the district. A stone bridge was built across the river in 1865 which provided easy access to other towns in the district and to the railhead at Gawler.
The Angas family sponsored the building of many public facilities including the Institute in 1870. George Fife Angas's plan for the settlement of the district and the family's close involvement in the town's development enabled many of the founder's aspirations to come to fruition.
