North Terrace Sites

The Adelaide Club building is in the Italian Regency style, with a three arched Porch perhaps a later addition. The first work done in 1863—the year of the foundation of the Adelaide Club—was the excavation of the basement and the digging of a well; the contractors for this were English ... Continue Reading »

The Jervois Wing of the State Library of South Australia on North Terracewas built to a design attributed to C. T. Light between 1879 and 1884.  On a solid stone base, it features semicircular arches above doors and windows, and octagonal towers. The Jervois Wing was built as the second home ... Continue Reading »

Early settlers in South Australia were protected by marines from H.M.S. Buffalo, which had brought Governor Hindmarsh, the first Governor, to the colony. Then in 1838, two years after settlement, when "undesirables" infiltrated the colony from New South Wales and Victoria, a force of ... Continue Reading »

The original portion of Government House was completed in 1840 and designed by George S Kingston in the Georgian/Regency style.  The building comprises two main wings- one facing east and one facing south.  The original design was adapted from one made in London for a wooden structure by ... Continue Reading »

Ayers House, the last surviving private mansion on North Terrace, began its life as a much smaller home. The first section was built in 1846 for William Paxton, an Adelaide chemist. In 1855 it was purchased by Sir Henry Ayers, a prominent South Australian parliamentarian. He ... Continue Reading »

The building is a survival of the time- in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries- when North Terrace was a sought-after residential street.  It is a small, but elaborate Victorian villa in the French style, consisting of a porch, sawn ashlar stone, rusticated quoins, disappearing jalousies, mansard slate roof, with an attic and a ... Continue Reading »

Holy Trinity Church was the first Anglican church built in South Australia and is one of the oldest buildings in the City of Adelaide. Colonel William Light, Surveyor-General for the colony of South Australia allocated the site on Lot 9, before the ... Continue Reading »

South Australia's Parliament House, one of Adelaide's most imposing buildings on the north-west corner of North Terrace and King William Road, was the object of bitter debate and wrangling during its planning and construction. Between 1872 and 1886 arguments raged over the site, and designs (originally provided by E.W. Wright and ... Continue Reading »

Scots Church was built in 1850-51 and was originally known as Chalmers' Free Church, a congregation of migrant Scottish free churchmen. The 120-foot (37 metre) spire which once dominated North Terrace was added in the late 1850s and the southern section in the early 1860s. Chalmers Church combined with the Flinders Street ... Continue Reading »

The South Australian Museum's Eastern Wing is historically significant as the third of four wings planned in the 1870s to house what was then known as the South Australian Institute. The fourth wing planned to front North Terrace was never built. Officially opened in December 1915 it housed Natural History ... Continue Reading »

The Art Gallery of South Australia began as the National Art Gallery of South Australia once it separated from the South Australian Institute, which originally incorporated the Gallery, Library and Museum. The freestone for this building came from Murray Bridge. The foundation stone was laid in 1898 and the original building ... Continue Reading »

At this site on 11 January 1837, barely two weeks after the Proclamation of South Australia's new colonial government, Colonel William Light began his famous survey to lay out the city of Adelaide and its 1000 saleable lots from a point near what was later known as Town Acre 1. An ... Continue Reading »

This was designed by Michael McMullen, architect, for R. Vaughan and built by J. Barry in 1876-7. The fine terrace of houses to the west (Botanic Chambers) with two storeys and a basement was contemporary and was designed by the same architect. The hotel is a little reminiscent of a ... Continue Reading »

Historically this place is associated with the Adelaide Lunatic Asylum that operated for 40 years on a site that is now part of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. The former residence which was built in 1866 for the Medical Officer of the Asylum East Lodge together with some walling and the ... Continue Reading »