Virginia

Virginia is a town on the rural outskirts of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia.

Virginia is a town on the rural outskirts of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. Port Wakefield Road, the main highway taking traffic to the north of Adelaide, passes through the area and used to pass straight through Virginia. Market gardening is the main activity there.

Virginia was first surveyed and established by Daniel Brady (born 1797, died 1889), a wealthy Irish settler who had arrived in South Australia on the barque, DIADEM, in 1840 with his wife, Rose (nee Rudden), and their six children. Daniel was one of the first settlers in the area with a land grant of 100 acres in Section 2186n, halfway between Dry Creek and the Little Para River in October 1848.He named the area Cavan after his home county in Ireland and set aside section 176 and 3035 for the township of Virginia which he also named.

Daniel Brady built the Wheatsheaf Hotel, the first prominent building erected at Virginia, in 1854.The hotel was there for four years before Brady sought and was granted permission for the township. He also built the Cross Keys Hotel on the Lower North Road which served travelers on their way north via the Glue Pot (a swampy sectionof theNorthRoad to thesouth and west, near Dry Creek Inn) to Salisbury and Moonta.

Many of the early settlers to the Virginia district came from the British Isles and amongst them the Irish escaping the Great Famine. Virginia became well known as an Irish settlement. Early settlers worked long and hard hours to clear thick bushland in the area. Initially wheat was one of the major crops planted at Virginia until Adelaide required large amounts of hay to feed the increasing number of horses being used for transportation.Before the railway line to Virginia was opened in 1916 people would travel through on the Cobb and Co Stage Coach as Virginia was a staging point.The journey to Adelaide would take all day.Virginia continued to develop and by 1858 a small shop and a post office were in operation with Virginia Post Office having opened around October 1856..Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church was built in 1861 on land donated by Daniel Brady and is National Trust listed.One of the features of the church is the hand crafted Italian and Irish marble altar which arrived from England in 1865.Even though Brady was Catholic he donated a block of land for the building of the Bible Christian Chapel named Bethlehem, in 1858 (National Trust listed).This church was used as a school for many years before the public school was established.A new Methodist Church (National Trust listed) was built alongside in 1937.In 1871 there was a blacksmith and by 1873 St Augustine’s Church of England was built.Soon after saw the building of the first formal school.

The Virginia Institute was officially opened 9 November 1908 and lit by gas lamps - over the years the Institute has been used for a variety of purposes from church celebrations, dances, fetes, library and is still used by the community.On the land next to the Institute approximately 17 trees were planted on 1 September 1916 in memory of the soldiers who fought in World War I. A remount depot was built by the Army during World War I, as a place to train horses for cavalry units.The depot was located near the five corners intersection.