Jonathan Swift was very
precise with the location of Lilliput, placing it to the north west
of Van Diemen's Land – that is, his imaginary country was closer to
home than the real island.
Tasmania might not be
as exotic as Lilliput, but the first intrepid British settlers found
it strange enough as they moved their flocks and herds into the South
East, the Midlands and the fertile North-west, clearing land,
planting crops and turning the country into a copy of England.
Government road gangs followed, transforming muddy tracks into coach
roads and building bridges at river crossings. Tasmania is famous for
its convict-built bridges, although you probably won't
recognise this one. It isn't very old and it isn't very big – in
fact, you might call it Lilliputian.
SOME BRIDGES
You might not recognise the name Bigge's Bridge either, but you will certainly
recognise the bridge. It is, of course,
Richmond Bridge, the oldest stone bridge in Australia.
 |
Hobart
Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser
(Tas. : 1821 1825),
Saturday 13 December 1823, page 2
|
At this time Van Diemen's Land was still officially part of New South Wales. When he visited in 1821
Governor Lachlan Macquarie named the town in the Pittwater area after Lieutenant Governor
William Sorell, who duly authorised and began construction of Bigge's Bridge. By the time it opened in January 1825 Sorell had been replaced by
George Arthur.
A year later Van Diemen's Land was officially separated from New South Wales and Arthur embarked on a programme of infrastructure development, continuing the good work begun by his predecessor.
New roads were built,
old ones were improved and bridges were constructed. Ross Bridge,
"justly considered the most beautiful masonry bridge in
Australia"
1,
Tacky Creek bridge on the other side of Ross, the Bridgewater
causeway, and the Red Bridge at Campbelltown were all authorised, if
not completed, in Arthur's time. These public works were continued by
successive governors, serving travellers to the north, south-east and
east of Hobart. By January 1847 when
William Denison
arrived to govern the colony, only the west and south-west remained
undeveloped and inaccessible
CONQUERING THE WEST
According
to the
tastrails website,
climbing The Needles is one of the best and most unknown short walks
in Tasmania. This is the view from the top. The rugged mountains are the Thumbs, separated from the
Denison Range by the
Gordon River Gorge. The Tiger Range is in the middle distance, between the Gordon
Plains and the Florentine Valley.
Various
intrepid surveyors had battled their way through forests, clambered
over mountains and sploshed across buttongrass marshes in the forty
years before Denison announced plans to open up the New Country by
building a road to Port Davey. Dismissing reservations about the
suitability of the country for farming or whether the economic return
would justify the expense, he authorised construction of the first
fifty miles of new road. The first, and most expensive, requirement
was a new bridge over the Derwent River.
On Tuesday
3 December 1850 the Colonial Times
in Hobart reported: We
hear that it is in contemplation
to construct a timber bridge of framed
lattice work across the Derwent at the rapid
near Dunrobin. The bridge will be about
320 feet in length, supported in the centre
on two piers of an elliptical shape 100 feet
apart, and at the ends by timber abutments, as may be required.
Mr
Adye Douglas MLC, in a Legislative Council Estimates Committee hearing, observed it was unusual to build a bridge to explore a country rather than exploring the country then building a bridge2. Denison ignored him, confident that if he built it, the farmers would come.
A probation station, one of the last in Tasmania, was established on
Walter Bethune's property Dunrobin
a few miles north of Hamilton and a temporary log bridge constructed.
Ten
months after work began, the Lieutenant-governor visited the district
and decided on a more practicable
position, about half a mile below that at first fixed upon. The
alteration will save considerable time and labour.3 Not a propitious start to a major construction project.
The first stone of the Dunrobin Bridge
was laid on Wednesday afternoon [12 November, 1851]; the inclemency
of the weather prevented the ladies from witnessing the ceremony. W.
A. Bethune, Esq, gave an elegant entertainment to a party of his
friends on the occasion. The road from the bridge to the New Country
goes through Mr. Bethune's estate, and the bridge, when finished,
will be second to none in the magnificence and solidity of its
structure. 4
Between sixty and seventy prisoners were employed
cutting sandstone from a nearby quarry and bringing it by punt to the
bridge site. Francis Burgess, Chief Police Magistrate,
went to Dunrobin, inspected the station there, and expressed his
surprise at its discipline, and the progress of the bridge there
erecting.5
but despite initial enthusiasm and
Mr Burgess' satisfaction, work proceeded very slowly. The inclemency
of the weather was only one reason.
DENISON'S FOLLY AND THE
“DONE-BROWN” BRIDGE
Richmond
Bridge was in use less than eighteen months after the foundation
stone was laid. Ross Bridge took three years because of blatant
pilfering of building materials and convicts wandering off to work
for private citizens – two circumstances that go some way to
explaining the proliferation of fine stone houses in the district.
Once a new supervisor was appointed and the convict stonemasons
Daniel Herbert and James Colbeck were sent to Ross there was no more
of that nonsense; the bridge was completed
and Herbert and Colbeck received their emancipations. The
construction crew then moved to the other end of Ross to build the
Tacky Creek bridge.
So it's
hard to see why Dunrobin Bridge was still under construction in 1854
when a flash flood raised the river level 13 feet in 24 hours,
washing away most of the scaffolding and tower platforms.
Meanwhile
William Dawson, construction superintendent for the road-builders,
had not done much better. The terrain proved more difficult than
anticipated, the weather was foul and setting fire to the forests in
an attempt to clear the land proved futile; vegetation grew back
again immediately. By 1855 they had built a road from Dunrobin Bridge
to the Repulse River, pretty much the route of the present Dawson's
road. Land was reserved for future townships and the road, which was
“good for horses, and could without much labour be made fit for
wheel conveyances”6,
continued westward, north of Mt Misery and Mt Dawson before
descending into the Florentine Valley where a rough bridge had been
laid over the river. It would be subject to flooding, but the
surveyors said that wouldn't be a problem as nobody would be
travelling in such weather. From there on, to the proposed township
of Huntly on the plains near the Great Bend where the Gordon River
takes a right-angle turn to flow through the gorge, the road was
still little more than a foot track.
Mr
Thomas Gregson MLC, referring to the Report from a Select Committee investigating the
Survey Department, said
a
considerable public work, not Done-brown, but Dun-robin Bridge
(laughter) had been constructed at a large expenditure of public
money, and also a road leading to a part of the country where a large
proportion of the land was perfectly worthless, and which was of use
to but a very few interested persons.7
The
project continued to be delayed by poor workmanship, lack of
organisation, bad weather and rising floodwaters. Construction costs
rose even faster than the river. Dunrobin Bridge and Dawson's Road, the Road to Nowhere, became bywords for folly, stupidity and government mismanagement.
The bridge
was completed in 1857; 6 years late. It cost an enormous £15,875.19s
01d, well above the original estimate.
 |
| Dunrobin Bridge in 1937 (photo: Paul Jones) |
A
few farmers had made exploratory trips to the Vale of Rasselas and
the Gordon Bend only to return immediately, disappointed and
disgusted at the absence of grass, the general sogginess of the
ground, the impenetrable forests and almost constant rain. One
intrepid soul did make an attempt to settle in the district, but lost
his entire flock of sheep when the river flooded. Nobody used either
bridge or road.
Towards
the end of 1859 James Calder inspected the road and discovered it
already in need of clearing as the forest grew back. By the 1870s it
was practically impassable. The embarrassing Road to Nowhere was
quietly forgotten. Only an occasional farmer or hiker took advantage
of the magnificent bridge until a disastrous flood in 1952 washed
away the wooden decking. There are photos of the wreckage in the
State Library.
DROWNING
A DREAM
In the 1960s the Hydro
Electric Commission built a concrete-buttressed dam across the
Derwent, forming a small reservoir to feed Meadowbank power station
and submerging what remained of the old bridge piers. Much of the
stone had already been "salvaged" for local building projects. A
utilitarian concrete bridge now crosses the dam about 30 metres from
the original site. The forest reclaimed Dawson's Road; forestry work
in the 1940s finally obliterated almost all trace of it.
 |
| Meadowbank Dam; site of old Dunrobin Bridge abutments - Hamilton end. |
 |
remains of the old
bridge abutments; current Dunrobin Bridge in the distance
|
 |
A fragment of stone
wall in the background is all that is left of the probation station
|
The Dunrobin Bridge was
pretty much the last major convict bridge-building project.
Transportation of
British convicts to Tasmania ceased in 1853, but even before that
convict labour was increasingly being replaced by wage-earners who, faced by the prospect of losing their employment, worked harder.
As time went by the last of the "old lags" passed on and
the probation stations and penitentiaries closed. Denison's dream of
a road to Port Davey through productive grazing land and pleasant
farms remains unrealised. But Tasmanians don't easily give up their
traditions.
THE BUILDING CONTINUES
You might not recognise
this practical bridge, constructed in 1838 and rather spoilt by a
modern water pipe. But you may well have driven over it on many
occasions – it's on the East Derwent Highway a kilometre or so from
Risdon Cove.
Less than a kilometre
away from it is this pretty footbridge.
A new network of
walking paths and footbridges is under construction around Risdon
Vale and Geilston Bay. The builders are inmates of Risdon Prison
under supervision of a master stonemason. In comparison to the roads and bridges constructed by Sorell and Arthur this is
not an enormous project, but these days bridge-building is a
privilege, not a punishment.
reference:
