Domain Ruled By No Man

Exploring the history and weirdness of the Domain in Hobart, Tasmania.

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The dog and I are up here chilling on the domain on the big water tanks these big hunks of concrete that’s probably the rumbling you can hear in the background there’s a bit of pip work going on the domain is a subtle place it’s a tcid place it’s a place filled

With vess and weirdness there’s a whole bunch of things that go on here and have happened here we’re going to have a look around and see how we feel it’s an interesting place right in the middle of the capital city there’s a hill covered in Bush land but what goes on

Here well we’re going to try and find out the domain is an interrupted reserve of scrubby Bush land between River do and the main area of Hobart Tasmania so large that you can never see it all in one go white gum grass land growing in Shallow soil on dollar

Today what is left has been ringed in at the edges by noose of freeways the dog is standing on this gnarly Old Cannon we’re both standing out the front of the domain gunpowder magazine was building 1851 by the Royal Engineers to store gunpowder this building wasn’t the only way of storing

That material back in the day but it was one of the safest ways this building is very very strong and it’s designed to be fire resistant because if you get a flame going on there blam o most people in about probably don’t even know what’s here the magazine was

Built double roofed of solid sandstone cable of storing 1,600 whole barrels to overcome the danger of Sparks the only metals used were copper bronze and Brass ventilation was constructed indirect to prevent Embers from bushfires entering the facility actually remained hobart’s main gunpowder storage right up until 1970 in the early period

Gunpowder was also stored on ships kept the float offshore in the doent The Aladdin was one such vessel the gunpowder hog being kept in the capital from 1885 to 1902 the soldiers Memorial Avenue comprising of 520 trees first planted in 1918 and 1919 to commemorate the soldiers mainly from Hobart who died

In the Great War the trees are a mix of Himalayan and Atlantic Cedars as well as Blue Atlas and Italian Cyprus as the trees eventually die they need need to be replanted they run from halfway up the domain down to the senat one of the first appropriations of

The domain was by building the Queen’s battery back in the 1840s formed part of a network of Harbor defenses across the city later on in 1925 the sener half was constructed in 1905 the b w Memorial was placed at the very entrance of Hobart the layout

Of the capital has changed since then at the time the idea was that a soldier in the Statue would see all of the other soldiers coming and going sculptured by Benjamin shepher his wife’s brother had been killed in the South African conflict the statue was sent off for

Casting to London such an excellent work of art it was that they made their own copy which exists in Halifax West Yorkshire earlier Monument one to Charles Meredith it was originally erected as a fountain in 1885 it has not functioned for yonks the prominent Hobart politician Meredith was an early

Environmentalist introducing a bill to protect the Black Swan from Extinction since British settlement the land has been under continuous pressure for development set aside as a kind of people’s park it was protected by an act of parliament in 1858 nevertheless it’s been built upon and carved apart the annual location of the Hobart

Regetta the nation’s second oldest it commenced in 1838 and has been on every year bar two since the second world war sidh shows have added Carnival aspect to proceedings the largest humus in the state was bu built in Hobart in 1871 taking people and goods up the western

Shore of the do and across the island it’s all gone now today the station entrance has been turned into the ABC the rest is a mix of development inertia For a Moment In Time the old station wasn’t good enough and there was a dream of replacing it with a

Better one that would deliver passengers right into the heart of town when premier he died suddenly in 1939 any hopes of a grander new project also departed it was perhaps the beginning of the slow retraction of train travel in Tasmania domain house erected in 1849 in a Gothic architectural look it served as

The hobot high school before it became the University of Tasmania from 1890 to 1963 when Utz moved to Sandy Bay the popular jogging and dog friendly walking spot is Max’s infinity loop The Duel surface track was named after local running Enthusiast Maxwell George Cherry under the new current Loop is the old

Road for a long time it used to be able to drive your car around it today it’s pretty much only used by people on their feet like it was to begin with first human occupation was by unknowable Aboriginal explorers for eons various bands of these people returned the dog’s occupying himself

With a stick and I’m leaning against this post this post belonged to a gate you can see the two posts with the spots where the bit in the- Middle would have spun or swung on its hinges if you get a gate you’re going to get a fence

So why with a whole bunch of fences not just running along this way but that way and this way crisscrossing all over the place up here on the domain a 1927 map of Hobart town as a kind of a cartoon back in the day the domain was

Used to be leased by the government for the grazing of sheep to keep the Sheep safe they were held within a whole series of fences and to get between the fences there were a series of gates Council Malcolm clear patrolled the domain from 1865 to 1884 animals

Grazing were monitored by him at the main gate which was at his home a house at the bottom of what became known as clear’s Gates Road the government created a quarry to mine gravel to build roads the hobot city council still controls these quaries today locked up like a bird in a cage

The 1928 Marshall Steamroller the machine was used to build roads and is still functional on special occasions it’s let out and the whistle can be heard passing another dormant Quarry is the Brooker freeway open in 1954 it cuts off the domain like a moat round a

Castle an 1885 map of Hobart a circle marked Old Quarry you can see it as it was just Disturbed Stone the most modern Hobart Aquatic Center is now on that spot before it though was the original Olympic swimming pool when it was demolished something happened the demolished materials from

The pool had to be dumped in previous decades they might have been poured into the do went somewhere to reclaim land they dumped a lot of them on the domain itself some of it was used to create an embankment next to the Athletic Center

A GLE is a piece of land owned by a church the G is a suburb that sits on the domain it was originally three separate glebs owned by three separate churches Roman Catholic Trinity and Presbyterian over time the church has sold the land and now its

Homes the TCA ground the oval was home to the Tasmanian Cricket Association from 1882 to 1987 before it moved across the river to the Bell roval among other things greyhound racing was performed there in 2001 ACDC play Pavilion point is the name of the place on the domain where the Tasman Bridge

Now leaves the western shore the name came from the Pavilion once erected there to view the regetta which was also originally there here it is depicted in 1852 by lwood Becker today the main building there is government house in 1840 the convict architect James Blackburn’s design was approved work

Began before being ordered to Halt walls were demolished and Foundations strangely filled in in 1953 black Burn’s original plans were adapted teak from the broken up convict Hulk ansen was used using onsite Sandstone the Quarry which is now a deep Pond 1860 depiction by William Pon K shows a building and a

Scene that doesn’t look super Australian if Government house is the proudest structure on the domain the most shameful are the tents historically the domain has been used by people experiencing homelessness the practice seemed to go away for a long time but in recent years it has become a thing all over

Again the old Zoo kept animals and cages for entertainment from 1923 to 1937 AAL images from 1943 show the place filled with oil silos the Navy used the site until 1991 today it all just sort of sits there waiting for the memories to phot away way the old Wireless station at the

Pinnacle is a humble weather board structure the building was constructed by the conth government with the aim of a chain of coastal Wireless stations to communicate with shipping the 180 ft High Mast was made of Oregon bulks bolted together initially all communication was made by Mor code in

1912 it was was used to relay information as part of Douglas morson’s Antarctic expedition in the past the domain has been used more freely by families and other people for partaking in pedestrian activities today large sections of the domain are in fact closed at night this does not however

Prevent adults from partaking in adult activities there at all hours from 1959 the Australian news print Mills had a storage shed giant rolls of paper were bought to there from Boer near New norfol the largest weatherboard structure in the southern hemisphere was demolished in 1996 he’d almost not know that it had

Ever been there now next next to the facility was the botanical gardens train station long gone now the Royal Tasmania botanical gardens initially established in 1818 by Governor sell real development began in 1827 if you’d ever wondered why the botanical gardens is where it is it’s because of this this green grass is

Actually a rivulet there’s a small amount of water flowing through at the moment because it’s the middle of summer even in Winter it actually doesn’t get that much water the domain itself is drought prone despite hob about getting quite a lot of rain the domain itself doesn’t because

Of where it is in relation to the river durwin and the larger Mountain above the city when they set up the handle Gardens they needed fresh water and this was it for quite a while of course now the water not only goes through a pipe and

Comes out the other end in a big pond there’s also the whole Hydro System they can turn on Taps and there are sprinklers everywhere but in the beginning this very modest stream allowed them to build botanical gardens in 1964 tenative plans for an open Auditorium were forwarded had it

Not failed the gain traction it would have been built in the small Valley that holds the same water course above the botanical gardens each year almost 200 Cars get stolen in hot and a lot of them find themselves being dumped on the domain I’m of the understanding that this is a 1957 Holden

Fe it’s been here for a while you can tell all the soft bits of the car they’re gone and a lot of the hard bits are gone too so maybe it was not crashed here from somewhere but dumped when it was already trash I don’t know at the

Moment it’s been used by people that go orienteering it’s got a number on the side 761 so if you’re into that sort of thing you can come up here and collect your points it’s an example of if you leave some hard rubbish somewhere in the bush or anywhere if it’s there for long

Enough it might become interesting after a while and I I think because it has a use now and because it is just this sort of bit of weirdness in the bush land here on the domain it’s a reason enough to allow this trash to stay