A successful AGM and History Night was held at the Kauri Community and Sports Centre on Thursday, October 19, 2023.

The night featured presentations from leading members of the community who are building our knowledge of the history of our area.

• Kaurna cultural heritage
• Glenthorne National Park
• Camp New Brighton – military camp at Seacliff (Grant Tinney)
• 5049 Oral Histories project
• Jim Blake’s updated book ‘Seachange’

Several of our local community groups were present to showcase their activities.

Over 130 members of the community were in attendance and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

Afterwards, attendees enjoyed nibbles and an open bar.

A short AGM meeting was held before the guest speakers.

Rob George, well-known local and acclaimed filmmaker, is documenting first-hand accounts from long-time locals for a unique presentation of historic stories of the area.

Get a taste here of Rob’s work, with four residents sharing their stories:

Mike Rutherford, MARINO – 50 + years of memories; childhood holidays; semi-rural style of life; local shopping; strippers at the Hall (!); bushfires and fireworks; celebrations with the sewerage connections; trainspotting; and what about the teenage antics  Mike Rutherford on Vimeo

Anne Baker, MARINO ROCKS – about building her house 50+ years ago; relating some dramas in the Gully; how they managed shopping (some daily deliveries); belonging and connected in the neighbourhood  Anne Baker on Vimeo

Fran Southern, MARINO – childhood memories of school and a not-so-pleasant teacher; development of Marino Hall and all the activities there   Fran Southern on Vimeo

Peter Hall, SEACLIFF – 30 years of family life, some spent as a child living at Kingston House; a leading figure in Neighborhood Watch  Peter Hall on Vimeo

Find out more about Rob at linkedin.com/in/rob-george-a05b0927.

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Sixty years ago Sue and Jim Blake decided to build a house on Jervois Terrace, Marino. Jervois Tce at the time was a dirt road with a collection of letter boxes at the corner of Frank Street, as the postman didn’t venture east of there for a while.

In their 32 years at Marino, they saw a treeless landscape with a few houses convert to a fully developed suburb, covered with trees.

Check out the photos Sue and Jim have kindly provided showing the difference.

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Since 2016, the Seacliff Tennis Club has played on courts at the Kauri Community Sports Centre, Lipson Avenue, Seacliff as a consolidated site for year-round community tennis, hockey and netball. But if you’d like to know everything that happened in the last 100 years – read on!

In 1921, a representation was made from a group of tennis enthusiasts to Council for a parcel of land in the SE corner of Maitland Square to be released for the purpose of playing tennis.  The Council granted this request and a ten-year lease, with rent set at 10 shillings/yr was apparently agreed to. This was the formation of the ‘Seacliff Tennis Club’.  Currently, this site is the location of the Seacliff Community Kindergarten (corner of Kauri Parade and Maitland Street).

Two courts and facilities were built and in the early years of the club games were largely social tennis by nature. A community event was held on 8 November 1924 to celebrate the commencement of club involvement in competition tennis.

In the early 1920s, Thomas Freebairn Esquire subdivided land, creating 77 building sites (known as Seacombe Park – now Seacliff Park) near Seacombe House, which was his home. This was on the east side of Brighton Road and he transferred one allotment (lot 78) in Aboyne Avenue to Council as a reserve for recreational use. Council planned for new local sporting developments to be located at this site.

Seacliff Tennis Club membership grew and in 1925 and early 1926, the Club held well-attended community dances in the Kiosk Hall and raised money for 4 new courts at the Council supported site in Aboyne Avenue. In October 1926 another community dance was held at the Hall to celebrate the development of the new courts. The Hall was boldly decorated in the club colours, blue and gold.

No doubt buoyed by the prospect of four new courts at the Seacliff Reserve location, in October 1925 they pursued and became part of the inaugural ‘Holdfast Lawn Tennis Club Association’ – now Glenelg Districts Tennis Association.

In the 20s and 30s, the club hosted very popular annual Easter Tournaments.

A larger clubhouse was built in 1956, organised by the then Secretary Ron Soar (at the time a policeman stationed at Seacliff).  Aboyne Avenue tennis courts remained the principal site for the Club until 1991. Other sports (plans for bowling and croquet) did not locate to the site and a water gravity tank was built in 1975 on the remaining land.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, the Club grew rapidly and by the 1990-91 season it had over 300 members, requiring the Club to lease up to an additional 14 courts for its tennis activities during the summer season. Holdfast Bay Council worked with the Club and local hockey clubs to develop a plan for new facilities at Kauri Parade Reserve, on the site of the defunct Brighton City Soccer club. The new sports centre included a split- level clubroom and a dual purpose hockey pitch which was convertible to 12 synthetic grass tennis courts. It was used for hockey in the winter and tennis in the summer. The club played its first matches on this surface during the 1991/1992 tennis season. This became the new home for summer tennis competition with Aboyne Avenue retained for winter competition and social tennis.

In 2014, a bold new plan for development of the Kauri Community Sports Centre was agreed with Council as a consolidated site for year round community tennis, hockey and netball. The facility at Aboyne Avenue was sold by council and 12 quality hardcourt tennis courts with lighting built on the southern part of John Mathwin Reserve and a new 3-storey facility built for the participating sports clubs, the Music Centre and community use. The site is the new home of Seacliff Tennis Club year-round and the clubhouse is shared.

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This is a recent photo of Marino from the air, but what did the suburb look like six decades ago? Mike Rutherford’s clear memories were of vast open spaces east of the rail line and a few modern houses west, surrounded by sometimes shoddy holiday shacks, some previously occupied by smugglers according to local legend …. again with much vacant land. And of course there were some of those wonderful grand homes of the past – Kingston House, the Dutch colonial home on Bundarra Drive (where Sir Hans Heysen was believed to holiday occasionally in summer), and a few others. Marino was certainly not the desirable suburb that it is now. The steep hills, bad roads and lack of amenities, made the suburb the poor cousin of Seacliff and Brighton.

Mike talks to 5049CC in June 2020:

My wife bought a vacant allotment in Yomara Road in the mid 1960s, where we always intended to build. So we regularly visited to plant trees and keep them alive through the first few summers by transporting water in plastic bottles from home. We eventually built in the mid 70s.

There were some secret pearls in the area. The caravan park was then both north and south of the carpark – part of the now Kingston Park reserve, and although under-developed, was popular especially with tent campers. The boat ramp at the foot of Jervois Tce provided great entertainment as keen boaties risked life and equipment launching between the rocks. We had the community hall – with its cabarets, drama performances and special interest groups. There was also the excellent Education Department local kindergarten – off Robertson Place. And then there was the real local gem: the fish shop on the corner of Jervois and Marine Parade overlooking the sea. In summer people would come from far and wide to buy the locally caught fish served in cardboard trays with real hand-cut chips, and then sit on the rocks watching the sun go down.

It was almost semi-rural. We live adjacent to the now Conservation Park, which at the time was grazing land. Mr Sheidow’s sheep and occasionally his cattle would break through the fences and roam down the hill towards the railway line. There were remnants of a cattle corral in the gully that runs parallel with Nimboya and Yomara Roads …. and that gully, plus others would be filled by creeks in winter, with frogs and birdlife. However, the landscape was virtually barren. There were very few trees. It was not until the 80s that local residents, and the then “Progress Association” started to give the suburb its green image. The Cove Road didn’t connect with suburbs to the south, so we didn’t have the road traffic that we do today. One memory is the night the lighthouse light went “out”. This was before any back-up generator or batteries were installed. Pt Stanvac was an active port at the time, so we thought it prudent to notify the authorities that the light had failed. Well ….. to convince Police, Marine and Harbours, the Fire Brigade, or anyone else, that there was an incident was a real challenge. Whoever we phoned, either didn’t know of the lighthouse’s existence, or even where it was located.

But we did lack amenities. Only one shop – a delicatessen/post-office in Jervois Tce was the only shop this side of Seacliff. The bus service was as bad as now, although for a short period it travelled high into the south eastern parts of the suburb, and through the area west of the rail line. Sadly that was discontinued.

One of Marino’s great disadvantages was that we had a reputation as the suburb of garbage dumps. Entrance to the suburb was marked by Holdfast Bay Council’s dump on what is now the Kauri Parade Sports Centre, nicely off-set by the cement works and associated dumps on the southern side of Scholefield Road. Then there was Marino Council’s dump on what is now Bandon Reserve, later moved to the top of Nimboya Road. At least those resulted in Bandon being repatriated into the Reserve that it is now, and Nimboya Road Reserve being established to compensate locals for all the traffic and disturbance from the big dump on the hill. However they brought visitors! At weekends, a convoy of cars towing trailers would snake through the suburb – in the days before green and yellow bins. I wonder how many of those people thought to themselves: “Gee …. This might be a good place to eventually come to live”

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Mike Rutherford muses in this article about his childhood memories from the 1950s, about the time he spent here in his school holidays.  How different were our suburbs then – read how Mike explored the area as a kid, and about the variety of the shops along Wheatland St and Brighton Rd.

RECOLLECTIONS OF SEACLIFF 1950s

Mike Rutherford talking to 5049 CC Association in June 2020

When did you first spend time here?
My grandmother bought a vacant block in Acacia Street in the early 1950s. Even before she built on it, we would drive down to Seacliff in my Dad’s Model A Ford  (often with the canvas top folded down in summer) to go to the beach, and on Saturdays be allowed to join the adults in the green, shady beer garden of the Seacliff Hotel, where the kids would be treated to pints of raspberry and lemonade, while the women sipped their hock, lime and lemon drinks (or Barossa Pearl if it was a special occasion), and the men “shouted” rounds of beer …. from the jug.

When my Grandmother built her home, I would spend most school holidays in residence up until the late 60s, with the summer vacations the highlights.  

So, what did kids do back then?
Because I wasn’t a “local” I didn’t have any friends nearby, so life was fairly solitary. The neighbourhood was still only sparsely settled then – lots of vacant allotments, especially in Marino and Kingston Park. I’d go exploring along the rail line up into those areas, which was like being in the country although very open and fairly tree-less. I think grazing still existed down to about the Marino Rocks Station, and there were big concrete and steel remnants of the quarry flying fox near Marino Station that were great to climb over. However it was the beach that was the real attraction. Dad built me a bicycle-wheeled trolley to transport my huge (and heavy) plywood surf ski via Maitland Tce, and down the “zig zag” to the seafront. Pushing the contraption back up the steep hill and home at the end of a day was a huge effort! But it was all worth it. I paddled as far north as the Brighton Jetty, and south almost to Hallett Cove, in much the same way as the modern day kayakers do. I’d have my swim mask, and a couple of bricks tied to a long rope, which I used as an anchor when I wanted to go over the side. Sundays were beach cricket with the men. Sometimes there would be 30 of us kids and adults. One of the men parked his utility with a huge icebox in the back, on the esplanade, to which the men adjourned at regular intervals for a beer while the kids were sent off for a swim or to look for crabs under the rocks.

What are your most vivid memories of the time?
Coming here was always during school vacations or on weekends, so everything was like a holiday and my memories come through that filter. And I was quite young. I think steam trains were still running then, and I reckon most trains terminated at Marino. I certainly remember the “Red Hen” railcars and their over-powering smell of diesel. The range of local shopping is another of my lasting memories. The huge (for its era) Woolworths supermarket on the corner of Pine Ave and Brighton Road provided our weekly shop. There was a butcher and drapers in the strip of shops at the top of Brighton Road on the western side, where now there is a chiro/massage business and hairdresser. Opposite (where is now the “Organise” home storage products shop), was our local Medical Practice and Pharmacy. Further north, on the western side, in what until recently was the “Wooden Blinds” outlet, was our local hardware shop, with nails, screws, etc in bulk – which would be weighed out into paper bags. Opposite and further north, the current tattoo studio was a newsagent, and next to that a ladies’ hairdresser.  I think there was a Shell service station on the N.W. corner of Brighton Road and Wheatland Street. There was another service station on the N.E. corner of Brighton and Seacombe roads – later to become Viverit’s Crash Repairs and now under another name. Because we lived at the extreme southern end of Seacliff, and we had all these local shops, we rarely ventured to Wheatland St, so my memories of businesses there are very sketchy. I vaguely recall a large “emporium” on the southern side, but others might know more. The imposing police station at the eastern end was also very conspicuous. This was all before Marion Shopping Centre, so we were very self-sufficient. Significantly (for a child), I think the sideshows and rides came to the esplanade opposite the hotel for a few years, but I can stand corrected. I certainly remember them at Brighton just south of the jetty.

The Seacliff Park brownfield site, about to become the site of a medium density residential development, has a rich history.

Dilapidated industrial buildings, areas of stockpiled “fill” and vandalism on the site have contributed to the poor visual appearance of the land in the last 30 years.

While it has been vacant and derelict for decades, it is a former industrial site with many multiple uses over time.

Located within the suburbs of Seacliff, Seacliff Park and Marino; it is mostly in Marion Council, however a small portion along Scholefield Road is in the City of Holdfast Bay. The site is located prominently at the intersection of Ocean Boulevard and Scholefield Road.

The site’s history includes

• Adelaide Brighton Cement used it as a site for the production and storage of cement
• Asphalt Plant
• Monier Tiles used the site for the making of coloured cement tiles
• Lorenzin Contractors used the site for the storage of heavy machinery and earth moving equipment

Over the years, a portion of the site was also used to dump rubbish. Parts of the site are known to be contaminated.

The site has now been sold to the Gasparin Group with the intent of developing it for residential housing.

The community has had a long association with this problematic site and has campaigned about its impacts on the community for the over 40 years. In more recent times the general consensus has been that the development of the site is welcomed, subject to the details.

The progress has been sporadic and slow. The re-zoning process has been complex and stalled several times due to key stakeholder negotiations between Boral, the Developer and SA Govt.

The adjoining Linwood Quarry (Boral) will continue to operate for the next 200 years.

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This story is told by Harry Owen, local history buff, and he starts the Scholefield Road story as really beginning in 1343 in the north of England with the first recorded use of the name Scholefeld. This is an example of a locational name, that is the last name (family) is used to identify an individual by a geographical feature near where they lived and is a corruption of the Old English words Schole which means a hut and Feld which means a meadow or pasture. Since then there have been many spellings of the name including Schofield and Scholefield.

In 1905 The Register reported that the SA Portland Cement Company had appointed Frank Sykes Scholefield to manage the Brighton Cement Works in Marino. At this time the cement was transported by road and it was hoped it would be transported by rail when the line to Marino was  constructed. Indeed the business case for the railway was based on the income for the “freight from the cement works being a substantial item”. Unfortunately the Rail Commissioners and the Company couldn’t agree on funding for a private siding and in January 1913 The Register reported that there  would be no siding from the Cement Works. At some stage a road was made to connect the works to Marino station and this road became what we now know as Scholefield Road.  

On Tuesday 19 January 1915 an article on page 6 of The Advertiser under the headline WILLUNGA RAILWAY – THE FIRST PASSENGER TRAIN reported that:

When the proposal for building the railway was being considered the Brighton Cement Company wanted the line to pass near the works so that the output of the establishment could be put into trucks with one handling, or that a siding should be run into the property, but the cost of both schemes was prohibitive.  The company has to cart its product about a quarter of a mile by motor trains, but probably some more speedy and effective method will be devised later on. 

 The article also observed that:

 After Brighton come Seacliff (10½ miles), Marino (11½), Marino Rocks (11¾) and Hallett’s Cove (12¼). These are merely suburbs in the embryo. The through trains will stop at there, but whether stops will be justified for some time remains to be seen. At present the prospects are not in favor of big traffic from either of the places. 

In 1909 a fire thought to have started in the powerhouse destroyed a significant part of the Brighton Cement Works at Marino. The photograph above is of the new powerhouse taken in 1913 is dominated by the 480 BHPsteam-engine. The three men are, l-r: William Austin, engine driver; Frank Scholefield, works manager and Frank Dinning, fireman.

 Frank Scholefield married Muriel Effie Plummer, a nurse, in 1909 and the next year they had a daughter who they called Shirley. In 1937 The News reported:

 We shall not be seeing that promising young Adelaide artist, Miss Shirley Scholefield, for some time now. For instead of returning from England with her mother, Mrs FS Scholefield, in the Ormonde next month, she is remaining  abroad to continue her art studies in London. In the meantime she is breaking–off for a quick visit to Ireland. Mrs. and Miss Scholefield have just returned, I hear, from a three weeks’ visit to the Continent, during which time they managed to visit such fascinating cities as Paris, Munich. Vienna, Heidelberg (sacred to Student Prince memories), Budapest, Venice, and Geneva. home of the League of Nations. One of their happiest memories was a day spent on the River Danube. the “beautiful, blue Danube,” of which so many poets have sung and so many composers have written. On their return journey they paid a visit to the spectacular Paris Exhibition.

 Muriel and Frank died within months of each other in 1950. 

If anybody has any memories of or information on Frank, Muriel or Shirley it would be appreciated if they could send it in. The pillar memorial at the junction of Scholefield Road and Brighton Road was erected by the Brighton Cement Company in honour of thirty enlisted employees, seven of whom  were killed in action during World War 1.  

 References.  

1. A Dictionary of English Surnames (2006)  
2. Brighton Cement Works in The Register (Adelaide) 1905.November 28^th p9.  3. Willunga Railway Hitch in The Register (Adelaide) January 30^th 1913 p2  
3. Willunga Railway in The Advertiser (Adelaide) 1913.  
4. The News (Adelaide) August 26^th 1937. Special Women’s Section p2. To Continue Art Studies. 
5. The Brighton Cement Works, a Flying Fox and the Linwood Quarry by Sharon Collins and Natalie Wood in Smith, P.A., Piddock, S. and Pate, F.D. editors. 2005 Historic Sites and Landscapes: The Southern Hills – Marion, Onkaparinga and Willunga. Hills Face Zone Cultural Heritage Project Reports, Department of Archaelology, Flinders University. Volume IV. Kopi Books, Adelaide 

Note: many old newspapers can be searched and read at the National Library of Australia at www.trove.nla.gov.au