Gormanston, Tasmania

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gormanston is a town in Tasmania on the slopes of Mount Owen, above the town of Queenstown in Tasmania's West Coast.

It lies at the shoulder between Mount Lyell and Mount Owen and is south or 'up the hill' from an equally abandoned community, the remains of the townsite of Linda which is at the northern side of the Linda Valley.

It was built as the company town for the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company operations at the Iron Blow open cut copper mine and later also became the terminus of the North Mount Lyell Railway before it closed.^[1]

It is the only remaining townsite that lies in effect 'in' the West Coast Range.

At the peak of its population and importance, Gormanston had a local government authority based in its town, and it was a major settlement of employees of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company, especially in those parts of its workings in the North Lyell and open cut areas.

It was the nearest community to the 1912 North Mount Lyell Disaster and was used as a base by company officials attending to this disaster.^[2]

Considerable numbers of buildings have been removed to other locations, and the local government authority was absorbed into the new 'West Coast Council' and the adjacent Mount Lyell workings have been closed down.

It is the closest settlement to Lake Burbury, a hydro created lake from the damming of the King River.

There are currently no other settlement or other buildings on the Lyell Highway towards Hobart until Derwent Bridge.

There are booklets available in the Galley Museum in Queenstown, that give historical information about the town in its heyday, and in particular lists of registered inhabitants in the early 1900s.

[edit] References

^ * Rae, Lou. The Abt Railway and Railways of the Lyell region. Sandy Bay: Lou Rae. ISBN 0-9592098-7-5.
^ * Bradshaw, Noeline. The North Lyell Mining Disaster. Queenstown: Galley Museum Volunteer Committee. (Available at Galley Museum Queenstown)

[edit] Further reading

Atkinson, H.K. (1991). Railway Tickets of Tasmania. ISBN 0-9598718-7-X.
Blainey, Geoffrey (2000). The Peaks of Lyell, 6th ed., Hobart: St. David's Park Publishing. ISBN 0-7246-2265-9.
Crawford, Patsy (2004). God Bless Little Sister. Margate: Red Hill Books. ISBN 0-9752152-0-5.
Whitham, Charles. Western Tasmania - A land of riches and beauty, Reprint 2003, Queenstown: Municipality of Queenstown.