Penwortham and Sevenhill

Adjacent villages in the Clare Valley

Penwortham was the site of the first white settlement north of Adelaide and Gawler. An Englishman named John Horrocks came up from Adelaide in 1839, less than 3 years after the first white settlers arrived, and settled on land on the Hutt River and built a stone cottage there.



The local historical society has since restored the cottage and it's open the first Sunday of each month.



As well as the cottage, there are also outbuildings such as a stable. The main road from Gawler to Clare is called the Horrocks Highway after John Horrocks.

He named the area Penwortham after the town he was from in Lancashire in the U.K.


The Little Red Grape bakery which was doing a roaring trade the Sunday morning I was there! 


Vineyards behind the town, well village, as it is now, of Penwortham.


Skillogalee restaurant and winery, the old cottage dates back to the 1850s. The property was originally a farm, then an orchard and finally in the 1970s vines were planted for producing wine. The name 'skillogalee' comes from John Horrocks, he led an expedition inland that ran out of food, so they had to make 'skillogalee' a gruel of water and grass seeds. When he returned to Penwortham he named a creek there Skillogalee to remember that expedition. The winery takes its name from the creek that runs through the property.


Skillogalee vines plus a windmill which is part of many a rural landscape in Australia. The windmills pump underground water to the surface.



Kilikanoon Winery which comes highly recommended as one of the must visit wineries in the Clare Valley.


The outdoor garden at the Kilikanoon cellar door.

Sevenhill is the village that grew around the college and cellars the Jesuits established.


The Sevenhill Hotel, a popular venue for events in the area, there was a wedding reception there the previous evening with cars parked everywhere!


I love this old advertising mural on the side of the cottage, in the past they were painted on the local grocery store wall. Rosella to me will always be a brand of canned soup! Seems they also had pickles, it was a long time before I learnt that a Rosella is a native Australia bird with brightly coloured feathers!



I'm an avid watcher of the British show Grand Designs which often has people in the U.K. doing a barn conversion. I was surprised to see some barn conversions in the Clare Valley, this one seems to have been a stable and now converted to a private home.


This cottage looked as though it was being restored, I love that people see the value of restoring these old buildings and breathing new life into them.

The towns and villages in the Clare Valley are connected by something called the Reisling Trail, it's possible to ride a bike along the trail from town to town, winery to winery!



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