1930's drawing

Hanging on the Coach House wall.  The text reads ....

Old Government House at The National Park, Belair.
Drawing by J. C. Goodchild.
SOON after celebrating the twenty-first birthday of the Province, the Government, it would seem, came to the conclusion that it was high time that his Majesty's representative in South Australia had a seat in the hills to which he might repair in the long, hot summer days. At any rate, in 1858 a line was placed upon the Estimates to provide such a resort in a "cottage residence" on the Government Farm at Belair. The line being passed, and a design agreed upon, prepared, no doubt, in the office of the Colonial Architect of the day (Mr. E. A. Hamilton), a contract was eventually let to Mr. C. Farr, a builder of the period, and by June, 1860, the new vice-regal residence among the tall blue gums and peppermints was completed at a cost of approximately £1,600. This plain and sturdy cottage, with the curious high polygonal bow-window, is, in itself, not very imposing, but the spacious promenade terrace encompassed by an ivy-covered red brick balustrade, through which blue-eyed periwinkles peep, is aristocratic at a glance. Here it is easy to imagine Governors their ladies receiving and farewelling, or just basking and surveying the prospect. The Governors who, from time to time, refreshed themselves in this agreeable summer residence, with a swimming pool of its own, were Sir Richard MacDonnell (1855-62), Sir Dominick Daly (1862-68), and Sir William Jervois (1877-79) Their successors from 1879 have had the more palatial house at Marble Hill to which to resort. Old Government House is still an official residence, being now occupied by the Officer-in-Charge of the Government Nursery in the National Park. Change of fortune, however, has not changed its character, and, in the tranquility of a lovely natural garden, bordered by a thick, low olive hedge, it is indeed, "The Rest", as the name upon the gate now designates it.-W.H.L.