11 February 2009

Old Canberran’s Old Photos - Part 4 - Mystery building and Black Mountain

| johnboy
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[First filed: February 10, 2009 @ 10:30]

This is the fourth part of a series of photographs taken by RiotACT reader Old Canberran on his Kodak Box Brownie in 1948.

This one came in with the following note:

    It’s a 1952 vintage and the background is Black Mountain. It will be interesting to see if anyone can work out what the little shed is and where it is.

    Any ideas? 🙂

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Could it be part of the old Canberra Racecourse? they were in that area near Kaye’s dairy.
Adjacent to the Old Canberra Hospital, where the lake is now?

or is it Mt Majura in the background? then it might be downer primary?

old canberran9:37 pm 11 Feb 09

peterh said :

old canberran, do you have any photos of snow at acton? I have seen an old photo my grandfather took, showing a snow plough at work, but it was lost in the fires…

Not of Acton but I do have some of the snow fall in 1965 when our kids were 3 and 2 and were building a snowman on the front lawn. It’d take me quite a while to find them though, the pics not the kids. Snow in Canberra is not unusual but heavy falls which lay around for a while are. I seem to remember it snowed at Xmas time one year.

old canberran, do you have any photos of snow at acton? I have seen an old photo my grandfather took, showing a snow plough at work, but it was lost in the fires…

Holden Caulfield4:39 pm 11 Feb 09

Oh, some of those trees along Mort Street are still there, too.

Holden Caulfield4:38 pm 11 Feb 09

Thanks for the updates oc, keep the piccies coming.

Well I guessed the right street, I didn’t know you wanted the exact location. 😛

the trees threw me – was looking at them as haig park which throws the sight line all out

old canberran4:21 pm 11 Feb 09

Just about spot on p1.
By the time Charny came along, Disposable, I was married with 3 kids and too busy with work to drive around taking pics of new suburbs.

If you drop that line down about an inch to start midway along the back of 21 Torrens Street then it’d be perfect. Glad you’re enjoying the photos.

Like this?

Cheers for the photos mate, they are awesome. Do you have any old photos of Charny by chance?

Hells_Bells741:44 pm 11 Feb 09

Always loved history. Always enjoyed talking to my late grandad about Canberra’s history, he was a kid in the crowd at the opening of the old parliment house and lived in the original Causeway (although he’d left Canberra by time I was born). Wish he had’ve had some photos.

So many thanks Old Canberran for a little blast from the past for us.

old canberran1:39 pm 11 Feb 09

p1 said :

I am really loving these old photo thread, Old Canberran, thanks.

Is this more or less the location of the building, and line of sight to Black Mountain?

If you drop that line down about an inch to start midway along the back of 21 Torrens Street then it’d be perfect. Glad you’re enjoying the photos.

MissPeaches said :

Disposable said :

sepi said :

downer shops / old csiro hq

Sorry to hijack but the “Satan House/animal experimentation place” definitely deserves a thread all of its own. I’ll try to remember to start one.

My guess on the photo is the site of the Melbourne building in Civic.

I would love to read that thread… went to Downer Primary school and used to do our sports on the oval in front of that place was always curious as to what when on there…

Cool, I’ll see what I can remember and try to post something up this afternoon.

Disposable said :

sepi said :

downer shops / old csiro hq

Sorry to hijack but the “Satan House/animal experimentation place” definitely deserves a thread all of its own. I’ll try to remember to start one.

My guess on the photo is the site of the Melbourne building in Civic.

I would love to read that thread… went to Downer Primary school and used to do our sports on the oval in front of that place was always curious as to what when on there…

old canberran10:32 am 11 Feb 09

caf said :

…so that means that the street in the photo is Lonsdale St, and the pines in the background are along present-day Mort St?

Yep. I’m not sure if the Mort Street trees are still there as it’s a while since I was in that area. In those days there were quite a few empty blocks in Mort Street and the trees had a bit of room to grow. From memory they were on the Western side of Mort Street backing the buildings in Northbourne Ave.

Wow. Thanks OC – that’s a really interesting history lesson. I’ve come over all patriotically Canberran filled with such knowledge…

…so that means that the street in the photo is Lonsdale St, and the pines in the background are along present-day Mort St?

old canberran9:03 am 11 Feb 09

Disposable said :

If the long building is Tammets car wash then the shed would have to be Cafe Pronto/Kitschen/Beaurepaires?

Right. The corner block and the one next to it were leased/bought by a market gardener from Sydney by the name of Cordner. He built that shed with used materials he brought from Sydney on his old post war Blitz Wagon. Every week he would bring a truck load of fruit and vegs and stay until he either sold everything or it went rotten. He used to sleep in the truck. He used to sell out in about 3 days because his produce was good and the locals could walk there and back.
The two blocks were eventually “bought” by Golden Fleece who built a service station on the corner block and sub leased the next-door block to Beaureparies which, apparently is still there. At one stage there were servos on each of the four corners. I used to work casual at the Golden Fleece as a bowser boy for a number of years after school and at weekends. The servo had a cafe at the Eloura Street end which became a late night eatery and upset the residents so much with the noise that it was shut down as the lease specified daylight hours only. I suspect that led to the emergence of food caravans.
Here endeth today’s history lesson.

If the long building is Tammets car wash then the shed would have to be Cafe Pronto/Kitschen/Beaurepaires?

Toilet block??

Was the shed a Centrelink?

Coggans bread! I used to have that delivered to the door daily by the bread man.

Ahh the things that slip your mind. 🙂

old canberran8:01 pm 10 Feb 09

Well done Deckard and Cleverclogs as well for being so close. The bakery, Coggans, was behind the long building on the corner of Mort and Eloura. The long building is actually a series of small shops and was one of the first buildings in Lonsdale Street. It was L shaped and went around the corner facing Eloura St. It subsequently got demolished and made way for a servo and then a car wash.
This brings us to the small shed. I’ll see if the night shift has any comments before I tell you about it.
Lonsdale Street used to be 5 rows of pine trees which ran alongside the railway line that was going to connect Canberra with Yass. There used to be an earth railway platform at the back of Civic about where the Target car park now is. Lonsdale Street was built around 1946/7 and it didn’t take long for it to become Civic’s industrial area along with Mort Street. Alec Mildren, the racing car driver, had a garage there where REPCO is or was. At one stage it was nearly all motor dealers and servos.

sepi said :

downer shops / old csiro hq

Sorry to hijack but the “Satan House/animal experimentation place” definitely deserves a thread all of its own. I’ll try to remember to start one.

My guess on the photo is the site of the Melbourne building in Civic.

Ainslie Oval?

downer shops / old csiro hq

What about closer to the city like clevercogs suggested? Maybe Lonsdale ad Elouera?

Joker said :

Cnr of Ipima and Limestone

which is Merici College I suggested before, unless on the nortern side of that….

Cnr of Ipima and Limestone

corner of northbourne and ipima?

Ainslie shops perhaps?

There was a bakery on the corner of Elouera St and Mort St where the car dealership & Delissio are now…

old canberran4:03 pm 10 Feb 09

A couple of you are getting quite close. ABC129 and Holden C.
I don’t expect anyone to know what the little shed was as it was demolished a few years later. The long building was also demolished years later and has been replaced with several different buildings over the years.
Clue 2: both the shed and the long building are corner blocks.

merici on Limestone?

My guess is Lonsdale St, although I have no idea what the shed is….early version of the Civic Pub, or Pizza Hut? 🙂

Holden Caulfield2:35 pm 10 Feb 09

So maybe the trees are Northbourne Ave and the photo was taken from somewhere near Mort or Lonsdale Streets? Telephone Exchange maybe?

old canberran2:24 pm 10 Feb 09

Clue No 1: it was taken from a location in Braddon. If you click on the photo you can see a larger image which may help.

canberra bureaucrat2:11 pm 10 Feb 09

not O’connor shops is it?

stereo henry1:57 pm 10 Feb 09

Chiefly’s outhouse, parliament house 🙂

is that turner primary on condamine street?

Ainslie Primary School?
Or perhaps the Old school on Elouera st, Braddon where Questacon used to be all those years ago?

old canberran1:11 pm 10 Feb 09

Holden Caulfield said :

I was wondering if the trees are part of Haig Park?

If that is right, then Turner bowls club maybe? Or some old building in Braddon which has since bee replaced by an apartment building?

You are in the right general area HC. I took the photo from the Eastern side of Black mountain looking West. I would imagine that most on this forum would have driven along the street in the photo at some stage.

Holden Caulfield12:50 pm 10 Feb 09

I was wondering if the trees are part of Haig Park?

If that is right, then Turner bowls club maybe? Or some old building in Braddon which has since bee replaced by an apartment building?

Rawhide Kid No 212:47 pm 10 Feb 09

Don’t forget Lake Burley Griffin wasn’t there then.

I thought it was the original National Gallery.

Aranda, it turns out, wasn’t there till ’67, and Cook later, so it must be taken from the other side. Turner was developed in the ’40s and ’50. Did anyone go to the primary school there? Or is it a building that used to exist somewhere in Acton?

Scrivenir’s survey hut?

Black Mountain with the bigger lump on the right, so somewhere Northwest of it?
The site currently known as Canberra High?

Not living at that end of town, or getting a good look at Black Mountain everyday, I am just guessing and have no idea…

It looks like the Cook Primary School. But if it is I am surpised. I didn’t know it was there back then.

If it is, maybe the shed is where the kiddiwinkies were meant to go and smoke?

Yeah, the building behind the shed kinda looks like a school building. Although, did they build schools like that in ’48?

Are those buildings part of CSIRO? although Black Mountain looks a bit far away for that.

Or is it looking from the other side of Black Mountain? Aranda Primary school maybe?

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