Pennington Terrace: Colonial gems

Curated by The Adelaide City Explorer Team

Stroll along this beautiful North Adelaide Street and discover the architectural gems of Pennington Terrace and nearby Montefiore Hill. From the landmark St Peters Cathedral that greets those entering North Adelaide, to the humble meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends, this trail is

a living reminder of the city's colonial past..

St Peters Cathedral

Arriving in the colony on December 28, 1847, Bishop Augustus Short, brought with him £1000 and plans to build a Gothic-style Anglican cathedral. The next year he was granted an acre of land in the centre of Victoria Square. However the Corporation of…

Religious Society of Friends’ Meeting House

This modest house is a rare and important example of a prefabricated building brought to the colony in its earliest years. It was made by Henry Manning of London, a notable maker of “portable colonial cottages”. As early as 1825, the Quakers in…

Walkley Cottage

You could easily miss this small cottage among the grand residences of Pennington Terrace. It survives from the earliest days of the colony. Similar to the nearby Religious Society of Friends’ Meeting House, it is also a prefabricated timber house…

Downer House

This house is best known for its connection to the prominent South Australian family the Downers.  Sir John William Downer was born in Adelaide in 1843. The Downers were a well-known and highly regarded family of lawyers and legislators. John…

Archibald Grenfell Price Lodge

Designed by Rowland Rees and built in 1879, this house was owned by William Austin Horn. Horn was a mining magnate, pastoralist and politician. He was born in New South Wales in 1842 and arrived in South Australia in 1852, where he became a…

Hawker House

Several well-known South Australians have called this place home since it was built in 1883. The first was Arthur Waterhouse, son of the successful financier Thomas G. Waterhouse. The younger Waterhouse was a successful promoter of commercial…

House at 61-65 Pennington Terrace

This house sits comfortably among other grand two-storey residences in this section of Pennington Terrace. And as with many of its neighbours, several well-known South Australians have lived here. Architect George Klewitz Soward designed the home in…

Montefiore

This house has been changed many times since it was built. In 1853 George Green bought a property with its existing house and garden. Green made additions or possibly completely rebuilt the house to create a Regency-style mansion. In the late 1850s…

Carclew

This enormous home dominates Montefiore Hill. It is an impressive vantage point from which to view the city below. However it was not the original house on the site. The first was a two-storey house built in the 1840s. Pastoralist James Chambers…

Colonel William Light's Vision

Colonel William Light is the celebrated surveyor-general who chose the site of the capital city for the colony of South Australia. Although controversy dogged his work in the 1830s, his vision for a planned city divided into north and south and…