ACT Heritage Library Manuscript Collections

HMSS 0381 Illoura - A Pictorial History 

Scope and Content Notes 

‘Illoura – a pictorial history’ was researched and written by Derrick Smith, who grew up in Lyons and Curtin. His parents moved to Scottsdale Street, Lyons in 1966 when Derrick was three. At Lyons Primary School Derrick heard from friends about the ‘farm’ at the end of Devonport Street but was not permitted to go there. Later, classes from the school were taken to the site to dig for fossils, and Derrick and a friend also (unsuccessfully) set snares for rabbits on the site of the homestead, identifiable from the building rubble including concrete, bricks, corrugated iron and metal pipes.

Later in life Derrick’s interest in the farm was rekindled, and with assistance from the Tanner family, who had occupied Illoura from 1928, when it was a soldier settler block, until 1970, he began researching its history. The property had previously been part of Yarralumla, and was the site of the mess hut for the Weston Creek sewerage project 1922-1927. Part of the property was resumed for the Lindsay Prior Arboretum and the remainder was resumed in the early 1960s for the new suburbs of Curtin and Lyons. The homestead survived until 1970 when the land was needed for the Tuggeranong Parkway.

This is an unpublished manuscript in electronic format. It was created using Microsoft Office Word 2007 and saved using 1.5 (Acrobat 6.x). File size: 6.39 MB; 62 pages.