Hit the road with Greg Cure for an eclectic examination of the Midland Highway from the perspective of a traveller, reflecting on 50 or so years of travel from the north and north-west of Tasmania on this highway to Hobart. As we move through the landscape the fixed parts are examined, in some cases actual towns; in others the subsets of farms such as fields, plains, rivers, forests and lakes. We started the series with an overview; then Part 2: Towns Starting with ‘W’ (North); Part 3: Towns Starting with ‘W’ (Ross Cluster); Part 4: the Giant Village we call Tasmania and herewith present the concluding chapter at the southern end of the Midland Highway.

Final admission – it was the journey not the destination!

Kempton

Kempton, formerly known as Green Ponds, is perhaps the best-preserved coaching town on the Midland Highway and has without doubt the best preserved and most striking Georgian coaching house in Tasmanian, namely Dysart House. Dysart House has been owned by some prominent people in its day, including stage, TV actor and luminary Reg Livermore and arts critic and impresario Leo Scofield. First called the Green Ponds Hotel its original occupant was the canny convict turned entrepreneur William Henry Ellis, who started a successful coach service between Hobart and Kempton terminating, at his own complex which included stables, coach house and his own private premises. Leo Schofield it should be noted spent considerable time and money in a magnificent seven-year restoration of Dysart House. Dysart House is now emerging as a distillery and function centre.

Whilst Dysart House is the centrepiece of Kempton there is much to see in this delightful historic town, less than one hour’s drive from Hobart. The most striking thing is there is nothing tawdry about Kempton. The best way to see it is walk north from Dysart house- you don’t even need a tour guide as each historic site has an explanatory sign at the front. Our good friend from Campbell Town James Blackburn designed the beautiful sandstone Gothic revival Church of St Marys. Kempton boasts two other historic churches firstly the Congregational Church with a historic cemetery containing the remains of prominent early identities and the former timber Presbyterian Church, painted in a distinctive light blue hue. Also worth a look is the impressive mansion Fernleigh, the Green Ponds Probation Station and war memorial, the Wilmot Arms a former licensed premises and the former shop Kent Cottage.

Only metres separate the old and new highways at Kempton.

Green Ponds to Kempton

In 1840 the town was renamed from Green Ponds to Kempton, after its most famous and sometimes controversial resident Anthony Fenn Kemp. Kemp with a huge property holding is another credited with being the ‘father of the Tasmanian wool industry’! So fierce was the Black War around 1828 at Kempton the Probation Station was built to give settlers the protection of the soldiery.
Two convict stations were situated in Kempton; one on land where the Church Glebe is now and the other at Picton village, three miles to the north, between Kempton and Melton Mowbray. It is likely this was where my great grandfather was housed as a convict worker on the construction of Constitution Hill portion of the Midland Highway.

The name Station Street relives a time when Kempton had a railway station, being on the Brighton Apsley Railway which closed in 1947.

Remembering the past fondly – Mckay’s Bakery Kempton

As we take our journey through life the past expands. The older one gets the more the past expands for us. Suddenly we transform from the future being all important to the past being more important. Our minds are repositories of a rich treasure house of memories. Sometimes we want to reaffirm those memories. So a few months ago I made a trip to Kempton recently to see if I could identify the site of a bakery there. You see for years many Hobartians travelling home would call into Kempton just to buy the beautiful bread from the bakery. It was run by the McKay family. The bread was so popular that for a time you could buy it in Hobart from a continental delicatessen in the CBD. I found the bakery building easily as there is a plaque to signify its original purpose.

I posted my photo of the bakery site and its attendant plaque on the Facebook site The Tasmanian Midlands- A pictorial history. I felt like a foolish old fellow posting material on a small country bakery that ceased operating 35 odd years ago. What happened next was amazing : over hundred likes and fifty memories rapidly began to appear on my post. The warm memories of this little bakery had stirred wonderful recall in people’s hearts. In a few days, a memory of mine of the past had been expanded by the stories of others. McKay’s bakery touches a deep-seated memory- they have found bakeries in the ruins of Pompeii and Troy, among other places.
There are some lines from Kipling that might add value to the discussion:

The tumult and the shouting dies;
  The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
  A humble and a contrite heart.

Kipling’s Recessional is about many things, certainly in a big picture sense the transience of empire, but after the big players are gone (the captains and kings) we are left often with memories, for just as relevant are the humbler things, around how we once lived. So straight from Facebook, with identities protected, please read some remembrances of the customers, workers and relatives of this little family bakery that ceased after three generations in the mid 1980’s:
MN: My parents always stopped in for fresh bread when we, as a family, returned from visiting relatives up north.
AP: Loved going there and helping old Jo when I was young. Yes Mckay’s bread the best ever ! even now you can’t buy bread like that, high crusty loaves yum!
JC: Always stopped on the way back to Hobart from Oatlands. Julia McKay and my great grandmother were sisters, been their many a time with my dad years ago out the back in the bakery. Yummy bread. You could smell bread and cakes cooking smell wafting from the school yard mmm. A loaf of Kempton bread…what a treat and it toasted like no other…ah, memories…toasted in front of the fire with a fork about 2 foot long
SB: Their meat pies were so good too. Some nights Joe would put a sign outside the bakery – “Hot pies”…. As we lived just over the road, we would get a couple for supper – how scrumptious were they on a cold winter’s night….but oh the indigestion at 3.00 am in the morning.
CL: Had chance to check out the bakery a little while ago and the original wood fired oven is still beside the electric unit. It’s definitely a wow moment.
RB: I spent every holidays there as it was my Nan’ and Uncle’s place. Luckily today we have some amazing bakeries that make quality bread. Emily recently died and was the last of her generation.
TM: We used to have a bread box on the fence post next to our gate and they would deliver it to us.
FB: Remember a Sunday drive to go and get a loaf of bread at Kempton.
AC: Dear Peter McKay use to deliver bread to Bothwell in his white van when I used to live at Apsley best bread ever .
AW: Yes it used to be delivered twice weekly to my grandparents in Harbachs rd. they used to get the double high loaf we would often pull it apart to get the fluffy end and try and put it
MS: Best bread in Tassie

Mangalore Heritage Mile

Collage clockwise from top left: Oakwood, Wybra Hall, Milford, Marlbrook. Images from National Trust archive except Marlbrook ( real estate.com) and Milford (TAHO Heritage Photographs NS2267).

There is a long straight piece of road at Mangalore which includes some very elegant and historic houses notably Wybra Hall, Oakwood Woodburn House and Marlbrook. The start of the Mangalore Heritage Mile is marked by Woodburn House, originally run by Thomas New as the ‘Crown Inn’, a two-storey stone inn with spacious stabling for coach horses. Oakwood is a two-storey 1830 Georgian property which today serves as a sculpture garden, studio, and home with many sculptures on display. Marlbrook is a beautiful double-storey sandstone home set on 6 hectares. It dates back to 1828.Wybra Hall is one fine example of a large Federation Queen Anne homestead This is now a private residence but was once a boys home. It was opened in 1956 and run by the government. It was closed as a borstal in 1988. For some reason passing it always makes me shudder.

There are other notable buildings in the precinct such as Milford Cottage – a delightful Georgian two storey stone house . Nearby is the Shene Historic Homestead with the most notable feature the iconic stables and barn. It also has a distinctive Georgian farmhouse and the owners conduct tours of the complex. Also in the heritage precinct is the excellently preserved Commandants Cottage.

Bridgewater- Bagdad conurbation

I lived at Brighton for several years in the 1980’s. I asked a local before I moved there what was the best crop for growing at Brighton. The answer was rock, and I was later to find out why, when I tried to create a vegetable garden at my new Brighton home!

A sleepy rural town, it began to see an influx of residents prepared to commute from around that time. It has grown even further since then, and the selling off of the barracks to create a residential subdivision and the relocation of many horse trainers from the Elwick track saw even further residential growth. First settled from the 1820’s when Governor Macquarie decided it was to become a military post, the Brighton barracks was established as the area around Brighton and adjoining Pontville saw increasing clashes with local palawa people. The colony of Hobart short of food was encroaching onto their hunting grounds for wallaby and emu.

Residential expansion from Hobart has reached Bagdad so that in the not too distant future a joined up residential area from Bridgewater to Bagdad is envisaged. In earlier times Bagdad was well known for its orchards and you can still detect remnants of this as you drive through Bagdad today. I used to purchase hard-to-get greengages there. A bypass of Mangalore and Bagdad might serve to protect the many listed buildings in that area.

One famous family that set up an orchard in Bagdad was the Chauncy family. Most kids of my generation were very familiar with the book They found a Cave by Nan Chauncy. The Bagdad property with its caves inspired her writing. It was even made into a locally produced movie in 1962 famous for minor roles played by local future luminaries Michael Boddy and Peter Conrad and a piece of music by Peter Sculthorpe. The family property, ‘Chauncy Vale’, was donated to Southern Midlands Council for use as a nature reserve and is easily accessible from the Highway at Bagdad.

I have listed links to two very short YouTube clips on Nan Chauncy (length 1.33 minutes) and the Chauncy Vale conservation area. (2.43 minutes)

People Of Chauncy Vale – Nan Chauncy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbJEcz6Uqcg
People Of Chauncy Vale – The Landscape https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgaH0lSxAm0

Pontville- Brighton

Adjoining Pontville is the source of much of the sandstone used in many of the buildings in the Brighton- southern midlands area. It was used to build some of the more important buildings in Pontville.

Driving into Pontville, as you descend the hill passing the James Blackburn designed St Marks Church of England, just before the bridge over the Jordan River, you cannot help but notice the charming group of sandstone cottages known as Lythgo’s Row. It’s the standout feature of Pontville. It is often erroneously referred to as the barracks but the actual barracks for Pontville, as it were, were established at Brighton. I was a little saddened by the selling of off Brighton Army barracks because my father had done his WW2 military training there prior to deployment to New Guinea. I would think of Dad most times I passed the camp. The Crown Inn a very old pub dating from 1838 serves a good drop and when I lived at Brighton, I would often watch the football at the oval just over the river from the Crown Inn, enjoying a beer over the log fire inside the clubrooms.

Key Risks: Drought and Desecration

The lower or southern midlands has for extended periods experienced prolonged drought conditions. Even as far north as Oatlands did drought reveal itself in the cruel drying up of Lake Dulverton. During this dry period, from 1994 -2009 two levees were built across the lake dividing it into three sections. Only the smallest section near the Callington Mill was able to remain full.

The hills that surround Kempton, for example, are like a litmus paper.

Their hue from bright green to straw colour tells on immediately the conditions farmers face at that time.

Climate change will continue to put pressures on farmers in this area and incongruously floods will continue to impact the region from time to time as will bushfires.

The areas of the lower Jordan Valley were quickly occupied by colonials and this created conflict with the Mumirimina peoples. Bloody conflicts arose and the presence of traditional owners was quickly depleted. The Jordan River levee is the richest and best-preserved source of the presence of Mumirimina bands with the levels of occupation and use going back approximately 40,000 years.  The Brighton bypass threatened significant cultural sites and the Tasmanian Aboriginal community proposed alternative routes. In a decision unworthy of the Labor government all this was ignored with this piece of midden busting infrastructure!

Bureaucrats who build roads in Tasmania become very single minded and often only lip service is paid to preserving our history and culture, whether European or first people’s based. We must be very vigilant to ensure that roadworks associated with the new Bridgewater bridge do not have a deleterious effect on the important convict era complex at Granton including the Black Snake Inn, the old watchhouse and convict causeway.

The expansion of outer Hobart and Launceston will see more agricultural land be converted to housing subdivisions. All across the world large tracts of productive agricultural land are being lost to urbanisation. It is estimated China loses 1% of its agricultural land to urbanisation each year.

One project that could be explored is the resuscitation of the old highway. This will not be an easy task as many portions of the old highway have reverted to private ownership. It is a project worth investigating even if it can only be partially restored in places to perhaps be used by cyclists and walkers.

Key Risks: Centralisation and Rationalisation

The bypassing of towns which largely dates from the 1970’s saw vital trade generated by through traffic diminish. The key reason for bypassing is to make the highway serve the interests of commerce: namely, getting freight and passengers to their destinations quicker. The first to react to this situation are often young people who start to move to larger centres to find work, slowly emptying local towns and villages.

The push for privatisation, rationalisation and centralisation started with government services began in the 1970’s. Governments started to shut ‘uneconomic’ railway stations, police stations, schools where enrolments were low and declining and official Post Offices, institutions like banks and agricultural companies in the private sector followed suit. The smaller the town the more drastic the effects of closures. Should there be wholesale rationalisation of local councils in Tasmania, the effects on local employment would be severe. General hostility of governments, particularly the current one, to railways has seen jobs continue to decline in this sector.

TASMANIAN TIMES: Mangalore Bypass is Shovel-Ready, says SM Mayor.

Key Risks: government growth policies (risk versus risky management)

Successive Tasmanian governments of the last decade decided they needed to develop aggressive policies to counter population decay and economic decline. Central to this was to attract people to Tasmania by promoting the low cost of housing in Tasmania relative to Melbourne and Sydney. The rationale being that this would, at least in part, attract people capital, ideas, and business skills. Another tenet was to promote tourism not just from within Australia but from the newly emerging middle classes in Asia. The rationale here was job creation in the accommodation and food and drink industries. In addition tourist entrepreneurs would develop new tourist-facing businesses and create wealth for locals. This would lead to a building boom in hotels and other accommodation outlets. A further associated policy was to create business and tourist links to China through aggressive contacts with Chinese officials and businesses. Its highwater mark was the visit of Chinese supremo Xi Jinping to Tasmania – somewhat of a coup at the time for the Tasmanian Premier Hodgman.

Now these were good policies that largely succeeded but the design of the policies was seemingly devoid of identifying and mitigating the risks of such policies. Thousands of tourists put great strains on our infrastructure – our modest roads were designed at best for local traffic, our public transport was poor, our passenger terminals were inadequate, our public hospitals and emergency services moderate and our modest distribution of public toilets put excessive strains on our local councils. The government insisted on not directly taxing tourists to any great extent and it was largely left to Tasmanian taxpayers to pick up the bill.

Naturally enough with an influx of people buying into the Tasmanian housing market it began to push house prices up. This is not a problem for existing Tasmanian homeowners as their principal asset just got more valuable. However for young Tasmanians, getting onto the housing ladder became an expensive pipe dream. In larger cities housing investors chose to use their properties for Airbnb, reducing rental housing stock and increasing homelessness.

Key Risks : inappropriate developments

Prior to COVID-19 Hobart was a booming real estate market with appreciation rates outstripping even the madcap Sydney property market. International developers began to eye off Tasmania. Suddenly skyscrapers more at home in Shanghai or Singapore were being proposed for Hobart, with a nod and a wink from the state government. The more exotic proposals were coming from developers from outside Tasmania, often overseas. The government viewed this as a jobs bonanza and a state tax windfall via stamp duty. The developers not living working or educating children here could not understand any opposition.

These exotic projects were not just exclusively focused on large urban areas. Cambria Green project near Swansea is a very large and controversial project. Even Campbell Town is not sure whether to develop an accommodation proposal on the Callington Mill site. In addition the government was actually touting to have once sacrosanct national parks ‘open for business’, surely contrary to the raison d’être  of having national parks. An even wider front was created by the state government push to eliminate 1650 properties from the heritage register and has led to many community criticisms and the resignation of Heritage Tasmania senior staff member David Scott.

Key Risks: opposing camps NIMBY versus just build it

Throwback to the Franklin blockade.

It seems Tasmanians are polarised when it comes to major projects and three classic examples are the Westbury prison, Cambria Green project, and the Mount Wellington cable car. At its simplest the proponents say it will bring much needed jobs both in the construction phase and create ongoing jobs for locals when built. Opponents are citing the destruction of a Tasmanian way of life and that the scale of the project is out of proportion to the surrounding community. There are, it must be conceded, slightly more complex or extra issues around the Mt Wellington cable car. These issues can split communities very bitterly at times. Although long gone, the loss of the Gordon below Franklin dam project bitterly divided the west coast community, even down to family level. A further irritation to many Tasmanians, who are in let’s call it a growing minority wanting more measured development, is that the government is firmly in the development camp and is seen as not representing the views of all Tasmanians.

We seem to have lost the middle ground with increasing polarisation. It is clear there are many developments that most Tasmanians support, such as Gordon River cruises. There is a movement that is saying we want sensible balanced development with community support. A lot of Tasmanians stuck to Tasmania during the bad times because, simply put, a love for our way of life and are resentful of giving way to a ‘spiv’ culture. Projects like creating a distillery and visitor centre at Dysart House seem ideal and non-controversial. This project helping preserve an historic house, creating visitors for Kempton and leaving a relatively small human footprint would seem a win-win outcome.

Key Risks: Tourism

There is evidence from around the world that some centres which attract millions of tourists annually is causing angst and resentment among locals. Prior to COVID- 19 there was a sense that this phenomenon was manifesting itself to some degree in Hobart. Tourism in Tasmania also relies on open borders. It may take several years for airline traffic to start flowing again. Meanwhile an economy with a large reliance on Tourism with no Plan B might see a return to the frigid economy of Tasmania’s yesteryear. Trade, investment, and tourism from mainland China was one key driver of the Tasmanian economy. Not only has COVID- 19 put a handbrake on tourism but a more belligerent foreign policy towards China, has seen a marked deterioration in relations. It appears the well is poisoned in both countries and Australia has been caught up in US president Trump’s trade war There will be trade between Australia and China, but non-core items will be hit. These are likely to be agricultural products.

Some Midlands humour

As we move towards the end of our Midland journey, I thought I might include a few humorous stories some of which have reached me as much as fourth or fifth hand, I can’t verify the exact veracity of the stories, nor would I want to.

1.The legend of Ellen Sturgeon (Oatlands)

Every district has its legends. People who make an indelible mark on your memory for as long as you live. We often daub them colourful local characters. One that has filtered down to me through several sources is of a woman who farmed just on the southern outskirts of Oatlands. She wore gumboots with a skirt and had the capacity of three strong farm labourers. She could sling a pig carcass over her shoulder and carry it around. She milked cows and raised pigs. She had a dry wicked wit and lived well into her eighties: her name was Ellen Sturgeon (nee Burke)  Her farmhouse had a wide veranda close to a sharpish corner on the old road out of Oatlands.

There is a story of a livestock agent who had had a few too many to drink after a sale in Oatlands and heading south mistook the corner, ending up on her veranda.

She greeted him with words to the effect of: “I don’t mind you dropping in for a cup of tea anytime – but don’t bring the car with you!”

2. The Mercury Driver and the Night Cart man (Oatlands)

I need to define what is meant by night cart and Mercury driver for younger readers. Before modern flush toilets, the contents of lavatories had to be emptied manually. A large pan was provided under the toilet seat with an external opening. In the dead of night or early morning the pan was removed by a worker known as a night cart man. He needed to be strong as the pan was heavy. The soil was taken away on a horse and cart and later on in a truck. This practice had all but ceased in metropolitan areas by the 1960’s and lingered on somewhat longer in the country.

The Mercury driver was a skilled driver who delivered The Mercury newspaper up the Midland Highway leaving as soon as the first newspapers were printed and ensuring people in small towns had access to their newspaper by breakfast. They drove in all conditions at high speeds.

Now there is a story that a large collision took place in the foggy early hours of Oatlands when the night cart and the Mercury driver’s car collided. It apparently created an awful smell and mess on the main street in Oatlands.

3. Saddam Hussein – alive and well in Bagdad, Tasmania

During the first Gulf War the owner of a local garage in Bagdad (Tasmania) was awoken by a phone call from CNN asking to speak to Suddam Hussein! CNN was reputedly told, fairly curtly, that that was impossible as he was in the ‘Pink Palace’ (the pink palace was an old slang term for Risdon Prison).

4. Police raid in Tunbridge

It was a Sunday sometime before 1980. In those days, the rules on drinking on Sundays were very strict and only under special circumstances could one down an ale on a Sunday. Bone fide travellers partaking of a meal was one exception. Some pubs ran covert drinking sessions known as ‘Sunday School’ – they were popular in Queenstown where I attended one or two!. Special licensing police were known to raid Sunday Schools. The ALP State cabinet or caucus was having a beer after a conference in Tunbridge one Sunday and all were arrested including the ministers responsible for police and licensing!

5. Longford Saveloys

A culinary quirk I have is for traditional butcher’s saveloys. As mass production of small goods increases, it is increasingly harder to find a top quality saveloy. Usually the best saveloys are made by smaller butcher shops. I am always on the hunt for that special saveloy.  At the turn of the new century one of the best saveloys made was by Lethborg butchers at Scottsdale, who supplied the ‘retail ’ outlet at the Longford meatworks. It was relatively easy, if I was traveling for work or pleasure from the north-west coast or even Launceston, to stop in and buy my Lethborg saveloys at Longford. At that point I had some staff under my control and there at least one I could lean on to call into the meatworks at Longford and purchase my saveloys. I may have pushed the envelope too far with him on this particular occasion as I had also ‘requested’ he purchase some Brownell potatoes for me on the coast. He was by nature a chatterbox and he was in the Longford meatworks, which was quite busy, telling all and sundry the saveloys were for his’ boss back in Hobart’, heavily implying he had been dragooned. By now chatterbox had transmuted into what my late mother would have called yaffling. He was happy to tell anyone who would listen he had also been instructed to not stop at any pubs on the way back. By a twist of fate directly behind him in the queue and unknown to him at that point was one of my brothers-in-law, himself a bit of a saveloy connoisseur. He immediately tapped him on the shoulder and identified with one hundred percent accuracy whom the saveloys might be for. The chatterbox was quickly consigned to immediate silence. When he dropped the saveloys and the Brownells into my home at West Hobart that evening he did not mention the encounter with my brother in law. It was only a year later in a chance conservation with my brother in law I found out what had transpired. BTW Lethborgs have ceased trading as butchers at Scottsdale but a former apprentice from that shop continues to produce saveloys to the Lethborg formula at a nearby country town, whose whereabouts I will not reveal.

The Midlands – what’s all the fuss?

A midlands woodcarter orders 4 beers!

In trying to isolate what makes the Tasmanian midlands unique comparisons with areas from mainland Australia and overseas are often sought. Indeed travelling the Hume highway especially around the Yass area the countryside is reminiscent of the Tasmanian midlands. The villages in England in areas like Kent and Sussex and in Saxony in Germany I have visited provide some comparisons, but their growth was slow and organic. The villages of the midlands started life quite quickly first as coaching stops and garrison towns – the garrisons being two-fold, to house the convict labour force that built the highway and associated infrastructure like bridges and culverts, the inns and stables and the farmhouses. That takes care of the garrisoned but of course accommodation had to be found for the soldiers. Soldiers were needed to ensure an obedient convict workforce, to protect free settlers from bushrangers and from attacks from increasingly disposed first Tasmanians.

The midlands witnessed two types of bushrangers from the swashbuckling bon vivant Martin Cash to the sickening serial killer Richard Lemon. As what the early Tasmanian governments called the ‘settled areas’ increased we saw the growth of large landholdings many along the model of self-containment by convict and later free workforces for harvesting, shearing, wheelwrighting, blacksmithing and domestic tasks, of which Woolmers and Brickendon provide retrospective templates. Further support came from nearby coaching towns which became as the highway started to convert from horse and carriage to motor vehicles provided fuel food drink and other mechanical services to travellers. As early as 1850 a spine of settlements grew up on the plains and rivers of the midlands and joined by a highway from Launceston to Hobart with the completion of a bridge at Bridgewater in 1849.

Two of the villages Campbell Town and Oatlands became substantial towns. The other settlements had as their core element coaching and or garrison functions. This makes the midlands unique. Perhaps the high point of prestige of these towns was when the highway went through each town, perhaps in the late 1950’s. A demonstration of this is the perhaps apocryphal story of a football team led by two Campbell Town champions, Messrs Leedham and Croswell, defeating the very strong Tasmanian football side. This era may well have been the highpoint for the prestige and power of the midlands families who held huge rural holdings.

Whilst they have the characteristics of coaching towns, the midlands settlements are true rural towns no different in that sense from rural towns all over Australia, where the rituals of birth death and marriage will continue to practised long into the future.

Part of the north-south route was trodden perhaps 40000 years ago by palawa women on foot to the secret places where they harvested ochre, perhaps making it one of the world’s oldest highways. It is a highway littered with the output from the design acumen of James Blackburn with his works stretching from Bridgewater to Campbell Town. It has the grandest of houses and the simplest of cottages. Tough resilient Tasmanians these people with their diaspora now in our bigger cities. They will still persevere long after I disappear over the hill, just like the disappearing house.

Acknowledgements

To the palawa people who for 40,000 years had been the custodians of lutruwita, including what we call the midlands.
To all travellers through the midlands you are honorary guests and some of your stores and observations greatly assisted me in putting this series together. I wish all future travellers a good journey through this unique part of Tasmania. May the patron saint of travellers always look favourably upon you and grant you safe passage.
To the current residents of the midlands from large landowners to rural labourers and those in between, your living presence in the farms and towns of this area keep it alive and vibrant.
To those people who contribute the history of the midlands web Facebook page ‘The Tasmanian Midlands- A pictorial history’ – your love of the place you call home, your sense of history, your social and family recollections presented me with a rich tapestry from which to draw. Your encouragement, your corrections and even in some cases your dissent have been invaluable.
There are a handful of midlands ‘boffins’ who have been especially helpful and given me your time and advice excessively. I am not going to name you, but you know who you are, thank you!

Image credits: photos from National Trust archive except Marlbrook ( real estate.com) and Milford (TAHO Heritage Photographs NS2267), Launceston film society , all other photos by the author