Kersbrook, South Australia

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Kersbrook South Australia
Established:	1850s
Postcode:	5231
Property Value:	AUD $345,000 (Q1 2006)^[1]
Location:	36 km from Adelaide
LGA:	Adelaide Hills Council
State District:	Schubert
Federal Division:	Mayo

Kersbrook is a town near Adelaide, South Australia. It is located in the Adelaide Hills Council local government area.

1 History
- 1.1 Kaurna Aborigines
- 1.2 European settlement
2 Geography
3 Facilities
4 Transport
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Kaurna Aborigines

Main article: Kaurna

The Kaurna people (pronounced "Garner" or "Gowna") people were the Indigenous inhabitants of the Adelaide region, numbering approximately 650 in 1842. Few traces exist of the Kaurna people today, other than in some place names. ^[2]

[edit] European settlement

The first settlers established farms in the Kersbrook area in the early 1830s due to the relatively gentle slopes compared to the steep hillsides. John Bowden, manager of the South Australian Company's dairy farm at Hackney, bought a 32-hectare section and named it Kersbrook after the Cornish farm where he was born. By 1844, Bowden was recorded as having "800 sheep, 62 cattle, one horse, 13 pigs, 16 acres of wheat, eight acres of barley, plots of oats, maize and potatoes and a fruit garden".

The settlement itself was created by William Carman, a blacksmith working at a copper mine near Williamstown, who took advantage of the area's location on the busy road to the Barossa Valley to build a blacksmith shop and wheelwright in 1851. By 1858, some settlers had arrived and Carman gave some of his land to build a town. His preferred choice of name was Maidstone after his home town in Kent, but in 1917 the town was renamed to the locals' preferred choice of Kersbrook. It became a notable agricultural area, especially for fruit.

Kersbrook is today a fairly quiet rural town, where most of the old buildings still stand.^[3]

[edit] Geography

Kersbrook is located between Chain of Ponds and Williamstown along the Little Para Road, and southeast of One Tree Hill along a separate road.

At the ABS 2001 census, Kersbrook had a population of 314 people living in 120 dwellings.

[edit] Facilities

There is a primary school (opened 1961), general store, medical clinic and other small stores in the town of Kersbrook. Nearby Humbug Scrub and Mount Gawler are used for orienteering^[4] and mountain biking in quite steep terrain.

About 10 km north of Kersbrook is the 353-hectare Warren Conservation Park, a rugged nature reserve with views over the Warren Gorge which was dedicated in 1966 and protects a range of rare fauna.^[5]

There is also a pine plantation nearby, which is now part of the Mount Crawford Forest.^[6]