A Walk in Old Hobart

Walk Old Hobart


$18.00 per book plus $6.00 postage and packing
 

A Walk in Old Hobart is an entertaining and comprehensive guide to the colourful history of one of the world’s finest small cities, full of odd anecdotes and quirky asides about its often turbulent past.

Hobart has been able to retain a good deal of its colonial heritage despite modern pressure to develop; the book takes you on a tour of the old waterfront with its convict echoes and around Battery Point, a well-preserved Georgian and Victorian precinct.

It is complete with a specially commissioned map and also available is an MP3 audio by noted Australian broadcaster Charles Wooley, co-author with writer Michael Tatlow of A Walk in Old Hobart.

Did you know?

IXL comes from Henry Jones’ motto, “I excel at everything I do”
Hobart was named after Robert Hobart, Earl of Buckinghamshire, England’s Secretary of State for
War and Colonial Secretary.

Audio narration by Charles Wooley

You can also buy Charles Wooley's rollicking narration of the authors' Walk in Old Hobart for downloading to MP3 players or computers. Only $16.00.


Salamanca (book extract)

By the 1850s, Hobart was flirting with prosperity; the port was established, ships brought more convicts from England every week or so.

English and Scots gentry with letters of introduction to the Governor were being granted urban and country land, complete with male and female convicts (effectively slaves) to quarry stone, build homes, clear forest, farm and serve.

From 1848 to the controversial end of transportation in 1853, Van Diemen’s Land was the only place in the world taking convicts from England.


Victoria Dock (book extract)

Victoria DockBefore you is Victoria Dock and the flourishing city under Mount Wellington.

Queen Victoria gave the dock, built in the 1840s  to the fishermen of Hobart but an absence of any documentation makes the gift worthless.

Fisherman still, however, make a traditional claim to the dock.  More than 100 fishing boats once operated from it and what is now Constitution Dock beyond. It is a rare working fishing and shipping port right at the front  door of a city.

Corrupt colonial military officers, who were not supposed to engage in commerce, initially controlled the port. They monopolised cargoes and sold stores, notably rum, to colonists for greedy profits.

A causeway of stone was built to Hunter Island in 1820-21.


Battery Point CottagesMr Watson’s Cottages (book extract)

Go down Trumpeter Street to Napoleon Street.

The superb row of four cottages of red convict bricks on the corner are Mr Watson’s Cottages, built in 1858 to accommodate workers from the Battery Point shipyard by the shore below.

They cost £20 each. The cottages were nicely placed, a short stagger from three taverns.

The old crayfish pot leaning against the front of the home facing the cottages is a sign of Battery Point’s enduring romance with the sea.