Avoca

Located 83 km south east of Launceston via the Midland Highway, Avoca is attractive town on the main road east across to St Helens, St Marys and Bicheno. Located on the banks of the South Esk River it was originally named 'St Paul's Plains' by John Helder Wedge who surveyed the area in 1833.

The area was first explored and settled by Europeans in the 1820s but it wasn't until the 1830s, when convict probation stations were established at Avoca, Fingal, St Marys and Falmouth, that roads and bridges were built. The ready supply of cheap labour from the probation stations probably had much to do with opening up of the area.

The official settlement and establishment of the town occurred in 1834. Its economic reason for existence was a mixture of farming and the mining of coal and tin. Only the farming exists today.

By any measure Avoca is a small and charming riverside settlement.

Things to see:

St Thomas' Anglican Church
There is an attractive riverside park as well as a pleasant park in the centre of town. The town has a number of significant historical buildings. St Thomas' Anglican Church, built in the Romanesque Revival style to a design attributed to James Blackburn (the architect who built the beautiful church at Port Arthur), was consecrated on 8 May 1842. The church dominates the town from its position on the hill at the top of Blenheim Street. It is well worth a visit. Notice that some of the pews still carry their original numbers and that up the back of the church is a large pew which was built for a particularly large church warden.

Historic Buildings
Other buildings of note include the former Rectory and Marlborough House (1845) in Blenheim Street, the Parish Hall (built around 1850) and Union Hotel (1842) in Falmouth Street - the town's main street, and the Bona Vista, a superb stone residence (off Storys Creek Road) which was built for Simeon Lord Jr. The son of the great entrepreneur, Simeon Lord Jr was a noted Tasmanian and Queensland pastoralist who founded Victoria Downs station and was the father of two members of parliament. The Bona Vista, with its basement cells and its sandstone terrace, is a fine example of Georgian architecture. It was built around a courtyard and would have been the centre of social life in the district in the 1840s and 1850s.

In 1853 two bushrangers held up the homestead and shot a local constable. They were subsequently caught and both were executed. A nice irony is the fact that Tasmania's most famous bushranger, Martin Cash, worked as a groom at the property.

Rossarden
20 km to the north is the tiny village of Rossarden which lies under Stacks Bluff which towers 1527 m above sea level. Rossarden was once one of Australia's major tin producing towns but it closed down in 1982.