Subterranean Adelaide Part Three - The Treasury Building Tunnels

Subterranean Adelaide Part Three

The Treasury Building Tunnels

 The Treasury Building of Adelaide was first constructed in 1839, and small parts of the original building can still be seen in the edifice that stands today, although remodelling over the years has hidden much of it.

Over following decades, and especially from 1858 to 1876, construction took the building to new heights, and new lows, with long rumoured tunnels, which are now no longer a secret.

For more than 150 years the Old Treasury building provided offices and administration buildings for multiple Government agencies including The Governor, The Register General and the Land Office and the Colonial Secretary.

The building also features the treasury vaults, which during the gold rush in Victoria in 1852/1853, was where gold from interstate deposits was stored safely. Nearly 13 tonnes of gold was sheltered in the tunnels in 1853.

The tunnels underneath the building were actually a mishmash of various basements built during the buildings various remodelling and rebuilding periods over 150 years. The tunnels were interconnected with walkway tunnels to make it easier to move gold and important documents around between departments with more ease.

It has been a long-held belief within the Adelaide urbex explorer community that there were furnaces installed in the basement area to smelt gold, but this is, in fact, a myth. The two furnaces that are installed in the basement are not large enough to provide the required heat to smelt gold. It is thought they were installed to help with lithographic processing for the production of maps for the above survey office.

There is evidence that smelters were installed on a ground floor level to produce smelted gold, but these have long since been removed from the site.

The “newest” tunnel was built in around 1907 to join the eastern basement built in 1867 with the new northern printing rooms built under the north wing.

Presently the tunnels are used during various festivals to display artworks or for other social events. They can be accessed via tours held by the National Trust.

© 2015 Allen Tiller

Subterranean Adelaide Part Two - Roseneath

Subterranean Adelaide Part Two

Roseneath

Completed in 1849 in the northern Adelaide suburb of Walkerville sits the stunning Georgian Villa known as “Roseneath'.

The house was built for James Wyld Macdonald who was an official at the Burra Mines.

The villa, built from locally kilned bricks was originally surrounded by olive groves and rows of grape vines that flanked the main driveway to the front gates on Stephens Terrace.

At the rear of the building sits a small limestone cottage, stables and coach house that was completed sometime around 1845.

This building has a service tunnel underneath it that extends to the servant quarters at the rear of the main building. Other branches of the tunnel go into storage rooms and wine cellars. 

 There is an old legend that there was once another tunnel from Roseneath that led to the River Torrens. It is speculated that this tunnel was to aide bringing water to the house, to help cool the house, and to provide an escape route if there was an attack by local indigenous people, or if Russians invaded Adelaide, a constant fear at the time.

The tunnels are all bricked lined their entire length and were constructed under the guidance of original owner James McDonald.

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2015

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