Aldgate, South Australia: Travel guide and things to do

Located only 21 km south east of Adelaide in the heart of the Adelaide Hills (the Mount Lofty Ranges), Aldgate is most famous for the Aldgate Pump which sits over the road from the Aldgate Pump Hotel. The pump was used to water the horses and bullock teams which passed through the area on their way south to the Echunga goldfields.

Aldgate was named by Richard Dixon Hawkins, a licensed victualler, who established the Aldgate Pump Hotel and named it after an area in London. The word 'aldgate' simply is a corruption of 'old gate'.

Hawkins was not new to the hotel business in the Adelaide Hills. He had previously owned the Crafers Inn. Noting the traffic over the hills, and particularly the possibilities which existed at the point where the old Mount Barker Road crossed the Echunga Road, Hawkins built the Aldgate Pump, built the pump and water trough, and watched as more than 60,000 people a year passed his front door - many of them stopping for a drink. The hotel became quite famous. At one point it was described as 'one of the best decorated of its kind in the Colony' with 'magnificent chandeliers'.

By 1870 there was a small settlement around the pump (the one opposite the pub is not the original one). Richard Hawkins had a established a smithy on the opposite corner to the pub. Eventually Hawkins sold the pub in 1875 and moved to Echunga where he died two years later.

The arrival of the railway in 1883 saw the hotel's wayside importance decline.

Today Aldgate is a small and attractive centre in the hills.

Things to see

Aldgate Pump Hotel
The main attractions are the Aldgate Pump Hotel which has a good reputation with an interesting restaurant and a fashionably wide range of beverages. It has been modernised and changed many times over the years. However it still has considerable charm.

The Pump and the Corner Store
Over the road from the hotel is the pump (not the original one - and not in the original location) and the delightful 'General Store' - now a crafts shop - which dates from the early 1880s when building blocks were offered for sale in Aldgate. It has changed hands and functions many times. At various points it has been a general store, a butcher's shop and, in the 1890s, the Hills Cash Store.

Stangate House
In 1975 Stangate House was bequeathed to the National Trust of South Australia. It is an attractive house dating to 1940 but the attraction is the garden with its huge oak tree (some suggest it dates from 1864 and was originally planted by Richard Hawkins) and its displays of camellias, hydrangeas and rhododendrons.

For tourism information, see Aldgate website.