Tennant Creek Telegraph Station Self Guided Walk

Welcome to the Tennant Meanwhile, you and your team the closing of these buildings as Creek Telegraph Station are responsible for manning the a post and telegraph office. These telegraph equipment 24 hours functions were transferred to the This guide provides additional a day. You need to check and nearby town along with all of the information to the signs located maintain the line itself north original equipment. However, around the site. There is a map and south of the station. Your the buildings continued to be of the site on the last page of this blacksmith is responsible for used as accommodation for line leaflet that can help you find your repairing and making any tools maintenance staff until the 1950s. way around as you take the self- and equipment that you need. guided tour. To explore inside the You are also responsible for Pastoral Era buildings, keys are available for a garden and small allocation The telegraph station has always hire from the tourist information of sheep and cattle to provide had a pastoral history. When first desk at the Battery Hill Mining fresh food. You supply rations established it had a 20 square Centre in Tennant Creek. to local Aboriginal people and mile grazing lease, in addition to provide medical service in the the building site, and was stocked absence of practitioners. Before you start, imagine... mainly with sheep for meat with some cattle for dairy products. As you enter the site take time More than a Telegraph to look around you. Imagine In 1946 Con Perry began to This historic telegraph station being here in the 1870s when the graze cattle and donkeys on the has had several different uses. Overland Telegraph Line was first land within the telegraph reserve Aspects of the buildings and constructed. Besides members to provide meat for the nearby surrounds represent the changing of the construction parties and township and goldfields. By 1951 uses over time. Aboriginal inhabitants of the the last telegraph linesman had region, you and your team are The buildings were used as a vacated the buildings to provide isolated from the rest of your telegraph station over the period accommodation for Mr Perry’s world except for communication from 1872 to 1935. After this business. A butcher’s shop was through the Telegraph Line. time, the discovery of gold, and created with the addition of a Your supplies would arrive thus the development of mines cold store and chopping benches. only once every 6 months via and the town of Tennant Creek, Elements of the butcher’s shop camel train from Port Augusta. 7 miles south of here, resulted in can still be seen today at the site.

Parks & Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory Tennant Creek Ranger Station Regional Office - Tom Hare Building Ph: (08) 8962 4499 Sth Stuart Highway ALICE SPRINGS NT 0870 PO Box 1120 ALICE SPRINGS NT 0871 www.nt.gov.au/parks Ph: (08) 8951 8250 Tennant Creek Telegraph Station - Self Guided Walk

Later the buildings became an outstation START OF SELF GUIDED WALK: have stood alongside the smoke house. for the larger Tennant Creek Station and Having the oven in this location ensured came under the ownership of a number The Cellar the heat was reduced in the kitchen of companies between 1970 and 1986. area during the hot summer periods. WARNING: The stairs leading down Present are uneven and slippery. Please use Kitchen / Living Area caution. The inner walls of this building The Tennant Creek Telegraph Station are fragile, please do not touch. You may enter this building using the key. today appears much the same as The large verandah you are standing under when it ceased being used as a cattle Whilst supplies of flour, sugar, salt, etc. was added about 1911 as a response to the outstation. It is a declared heritage site arrived every 6 months, the mainstay of high temperatures experienced in summer. and protected under Northern Territory the food supply was the cultivation of and Federal Government legislation. local produce. Each telegraph station had The original buildings are of a Georgian its own garden to provide fresh vegetables. design, representative of the period in Extensive conservation works have been Stock were slaughtered on a weekly basis. England. As you enter the building, notice undertaken to maintain the condition of the thick walls and high ceilings. There the site. Conservation work is undertaken To keep them fresh, these food items are ventilation holes along the walls as per the Australian ICOMOS charter were stored in the cellar. You will notice and the louvres allow air flow into the for the conservation of places of cultural that the cellar has been dug down below building. It is a lot cooler inside than significance. This defines the basic the soil level to reach areas of lower outside. Is it any wonder that they chose principles and procedures to be observed temperature. In addition to this, the vent to have the bread oven situated outside? in the conservation of important places. you see in the western wall was covered As such, the Reserve has a Conservation with wet hessian, through which air would Look at the corners of the building and Plan as part of its Plan of Management. pass into the cellar to enable evaporative notice the series of stones protruding. cooling. Hot air would pass out at the top. These protruding stones are also noticeable inside the kitchen. Far from If you look up at the roof you can see being shoddy workmanship, these are an example of the restoration program. keystones which would have allowed The wood in the roof has been replaced extensions to the walls. These protruding with hand adzed mulga, as the original stones indicate that original plans included would have been. The wooden structure a divided kitchen and an extension of the is held together with wire twitches. outer building to enclose a courtyard area. You may notice damage on the walls that If you do not have a key, please walk has occurred due to rising dampness. In around under the verandah and have a 1984, extensive underground drains and a look in through the louvre windows. pumping system were installed around the buildings to draw off excess water. Under The Metters wood stove you see was the conservation program, the walls soon probably introduced during the pastoral will be re-rendered and white washed. era and this era is also represented by the use of lino on the bench. The concrete Smoke House floor was another later addition. Smoking was a common method of The final room in this building was curing meat to prevent it going off. the bedroom/sitting room. Please look Meat not eaten straight away would around at the materials provided. be either salted or hung on racks and CAUTION: The organ in this room is smoked to preserve it for future use. extremely fragile. Please do not touch it. As you look at the roof you will note that much, but not all, of the wood in Please ensure you lock the building. the roof has been replaced. This is an To reach the Telegraph Office, walk example of the restoration program. around under the verandah and examine Where possible, the original nails have the outer walls of the building. been reused and some wood has been replaced with hand adzed mulga, as Originally, the stone for the buildings the original would have been. Notice would have been quarried nearby and the that the front of the smokehouse roof is lime and sand mixed to form a mortar made from old flattened kerosene tins. to bind the rocks. The lime would have been produced locally in a lime pit. A bread oven made of clay or ant- bed (crushed termite mounds) would

Information Sheet Tennant Creek Telegraph Station - Self Guided Walk

The buildings originally would have had situated. There is a fireplace to keep No access is allowed to the centre room compacted gravel or ant-bed under the the operators warm on winter nights. as it is currently being used for storage. verandah. The present use of rock paving Initially all messages had to be manually The end room represents the butcher’s covers some of the extensive drainage retransmitted by the operators. Later area. In the post war period after the system constructed in 1984 to prevent automatic repeaters were installed. telegraph and postal service had moved moisture damage to the buildings. into the town, Con Perry’s cattle station The end room was used as a bedroom. The buildings also have had silicon supplied beef to people in the township of injected into the walls just above floor Please ensure you lock the building. Tennant Creek. Remains of the cool room, level to prevent water from wicking butcher’s block table and infrastructure up the walls and causing damage. The Cemetery can still to be seen inside the building. From the Telegraph office head West and No access is allowed into the rear of this Telegraph Office the pathway will take you to the cemetery building as it is being used for storage. where Archibald Cameron (a linesman) The Telegraph Office was the hub of the Please ensure you lock the building. and Bryan Thomas Nugent (from Banka station. It was manned 24 hours a day. Banka Station) are buried. This walk is The final building is theBlacksmith’s You may enter this building with the key. approximately 100 metres. workshop. In this area, tools were made and equipment repaired. Some reshaping If you do not have a key, please walk As you head along the path look towards of horseshoes may have occurred but this anti-clockwise around the building and the ranges in the south and you will was not the primary role of the blacksmith. look through the louvres into the rooms. see a windmill that was installed in the The first room you come to was the 1960s. The site contains the original well, The bellows were used to create the heat Battery Room. In this room there were which was dug to provide water when the required for the metal work. waterhole in the creek dried up. large banks of Meidinger cells. Each of A careful examination of the walls reveals these battery cells produced just over 1 Head back along the track to the buildings. some of the early attempts at conservation volt, so many of them were needed to of this building. produce the operating voltage of 120 V. Other Buildings A path leads from the blacksmith’s Inside the building, you may see that The remainder of the buildings represent towards the stock yards, which you can dampness has effected the walls. This will the associated work areas of the complex. see in the distance, and then back to the be remortared and the walls lime-washed The first room, which you may access entrance gate. This provides an alternative as part of the conservation program. with the key, was the men’s hut for return route for those who are interested. The central room is where the post accommodating linesmen. The complex and telegraph offices would have been also provided a shed for the wagon. Remember to return your key.

Information Sheet Tennant Creek Telegraph Station - Self Guided Walk

History of the Telegraph Line Other Telegraph Stations The Overland Telegraph Line was a huge There are four telegraph stations still Thank you for visiting the Tennant Creek engineering feat and possibly one of the standing. Three of them are managed by Telegraph Station. We hope you have greatest engineering feats undertaken in the Parks and Wildlife Commission of the enjoyed your walk today. Australia. The line covered over 3000 Northern Territory. Please contact the Ranger Station kilometres, along which 11 stations were at Tennant Creek or the Parks and built and 36000 poles were installed, for a For those travelling south, the Barrow Wildlife Head Office in Alice Springs total cost of £479000. Creek and Alice Springs Telegraph Stations provide a different experience to if you noticed any damage or improper If you consider that a loaf of bread at Tennant Creek. behaviour during your visit. We appreciate the time was worth less than six pence your help in maintaining this reserve. (a loaf being $3.50 in 2011), this was an You can obtain information on the Barrow We hope you enjoy the rest of your time in extremely costly undertaking for its time. Creek Telegraph Station from the nearby roadhouse pub. the Barkly region. The huge cost of using the telegraph, £1 for 10 words, or $50 today, meant it was The Alice Springs Telegraph Station has mainly used by big business, governments tour guides and an extensive display. The and newspapers and not the general person buildings have been restored to represent in the street. life at the turn of the century.

Information sheets can be reused. Please return this sheet to the box if you do not wish to keep it.

B/04/2019PWCNT Information Sheet For more information see our website: www.nt.gov.au/parks or contact Barkly Tourism (08) 8962 1281 at Battery Hill Mining Centre, Tennant Creek