South Australia

Place: Hahndorf

Threat:  Damage or Degradation through over-commercialisation

Significance of Place

Hahndorf is of state and possible national significance as Australia’s oldest German settlement, and has associations with the writer Colin Thiele, the artist Hans Heysen, and the creator of the Torrens Title (Ulriche Huebe). Established in 1839, just two years after the proclamation of South Australia, Hahndorf was founded by 54 Lutheran refugee families from Silesia (north-eastern Germany). They brought some favourite items with them, among other things, 41,000 bricks and arranged their simple village according to the Hufendorf pattern of long narrow allotments fronting village settlements. Surviving on crops of potatoes, cabbage and peas, the hard working Germans sold their produce to the Adelaide town settlers. The women carried their goods overnight through the Adelaide Hills following tracks also used by the original Peramangk people with every return journey made they each carried two bricks.

Rare and intact farmhouse, barn and family home structures, in traditional fachwerk and stone, can be found scattered around the Hahndorf hinterland, while evidence of the horse-shoe shape Hufendorf settlement pattern is discernible to the initiated eye. In a response to anti-German sentiment during WW1, 69 place names of German origin were wiped out but in 1935 the town, then known as Ambleside, reverted to ‘Hahndorf’. The town was named after Captain Hahn who brought the first boat carrying the German fathers (the Zebra) to South Australia.

Situated 27 kms east of Adelaide, few changes took place in the village until 1972 when the South-eastern freeway reached it, and suddenly it was a mere 20 minute drive from Adelaide. It became a mecca for tourists and commercial tourism operators. Within a few years, plastic pink panthers and Australiana bric-a-brac had crowded out the town’s cultural integrity. Declared a State Heritage Area in 1988, Hahndorf is the 5th most visited tourist destination in South Australia.

Description of Threat

Hahndorf is at peril of losing its cultural integrity to tourism. The main street suffers from visual clutter with too many signs. Inappropriate buildings have been approved and there is little, if any, interpretation of the township’s special place in South Australian, and indeed, national history. There is no centre for its interpretation, there is absence of an implemented management plan, and the main street, with its emphasis on tourism trinketry, suffers from the lack of balance between historic integrity and the tourism activity it rightfully deserves. Hahndorf National Trust Branch members and others have battled for many years to retain the town’s cultural history.

Action Required

The NTSA now calls on both the State and Local Government and the relevant local Government to work with the community in preparing and implementing an over-arching management plan for Hahndorf that strikes a sensible and sensitive balance to maintain and conserve the integrity of Hahndorf, so it can retain its own distinctive character and special place in South Australian history, while remaining accessible and welcoming to the visiting public.