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