Did You Know?

It astounds me how you can live somewhere for ages, thinking you know everything there is to know about it and yet you can still have moments where you suddenly realise that you’re not privy to some of it’s most intimate secrets.  It’s a bit like being married to someone for 20 years and then discovering that he had a whole other family complete with wife and kids before he met you. 

I’ve lived in and around Canberra almost my whole life and she still shocks me.  I didn’t know anything about the 1971 flash flood and drownings at Yarra Glen until two years ago when people protested the sculpture that was raised there...and not dedicated to the victims.

Similarly I had no idea that there had ever been brickworks in Yarralumla, let alone that they still existed, until I saw a news segment about the planned redevelopment there.  

Further discoveries include;

*  The Weetangera Cemetery

*  A bunch of stuff about Commonwealth Park including the buried Flugelman sculpture.

*  The All Saint's church in Ainslie that used to be the Necropolis train station in Sydney.

*  The heritage listed CSIRO site otherwise known as Gungahlin Homestead.

Anyways, apart from all those lovely little historical discoveries today I discovered something that floored me.  I was checking out a friend’s address on Google maps when I noticed this;

Yup.  A whole suburb out near Hume called “Environa”.  And it looks like a really well laid out and planned place.  At first I thought it must be a new subdivision and I instantly went looking for property for sale there.  Nope.  Nada.  Almost nothing on Google at all.

Why?  Because Environa was a subdivision 80 years ago!  You can read all about Environa, the original plans, the structures that still survive there, how it died off thanks to the depression and how the family have preserved aspects of the suburb that never was here.  You can also see the original lithographs promoting the subdivision here. 

Enough of the infrastructure exists today that you can see geographical features on Google satellite photos which were obviously the original main roads of Environa.  I'm still not sure why this discovery shocks me, it just does.  Maybe because I was absolutely primed to buy one of those blocks because it looked like a thoroughly modern well-designed suburb from the safety of Google maps and I loved the sound of it.  Environa.  It sounds like something our current government would come up with upon the establishment of a "green" living suburb.  *sigh*  

Anyways, to discover more interesting facts about Canberra and her long-forgotten secrets I suggest checking out Dave's ACT.  Dave is a Canberran historian who has documented what he calls his "urban exploration" of Canberra in his blog.  It's a fascinating read.

One final note - my friend Erica has also sent me the link to another little-known Canberra secret - ironically another vanished suburb right in the Parliamentary Triangle that is now celebrated by the fossicker's delight known as geocaching.  Good job Erica!

Feel free to write to me with little known facts and I'll pop them up for others to wonder at!