Yattalunga

Yattalunga is largely rural land and the history of this area is connected with the history of the property ‘Yattalunga’.  The property was used as grazing land for sheep and cattle, also for growing wheat, barley, oats and stock feed.

Two early farming settlers in the Gawler district in the 1840s were Philip Butler and Alexander William Thorold Grant.  They formed a company known as Grant and Butler in 1846, grazing stock.  In 1850, Butler purchased Section 4186, in the Hundred of Munno Para, where he built the residence of ‘Yattalunga’.

Due to the labour shortages during the goldrush period ‘Yattalunga’ took seven years to be constructed.  Sandstone was used from local quarries and slate roof tiles were imported from Bangor, Wales.  The house is considered to be one of the grandest pastoral homesteads in the area.

In 1928, the house, consisting of 27 rooms, was described as standing on the side of a hill, the front elevation single storeyed and the rear double storeyed.  Heavy cut stone pillars support a balcony, which looks down into the valley and a beautiful garden.

A drought in the 1860s led Butler to retire in the early 1870s to England.  After Butler’s departure the property was first leased by his business partner Grant, and then by another business partner William Briggs Sells.  Land records of 1878 show that ‘Yattalunga’ was purchased by Joseph Barritt, beginning more than a century of ownership by the Barritt family.1

The old coachhouse known as ‘Milton Bank’ at Yattalunga was purchased by William Bowman who converted it into a house.  The Yattalunga property was subdivided in the mid 1950s separating the farm and outbuildings from the homestead.

The name Yattalunga' derives from 'yertala' or 'yattala' meaning cascade waterfall in the Kaurna language.