Nhill Creative Collective

The Walloway Brickmaker, 1878
76 x 60 cm, Oil on Linen

Great-great-grandfather’s homestead on the southern edge of the Flinders Ranges, at
Walloway, north of Adelaide. Bleak country, dry creek-beds, few trees. Once a prosperous
cattle-run, settled in 1876, with cellars for the dairy produce, it is currently abandoned. A
verandah base still surrounds part of the house, and the brick walls of the outbuildings,
kitchen and laundry are falling in a heap. The house walls and chimneys are sturdy.
‘THE KILN’ was established in 1878 when good quality clay for brick-making was discovered
on the property, and production began in earnest. G-g-grandfather was originally a brick-
maker. His bricks were exported as far as Port Pirie and Broken Hill. The kiln itself was fired
by tons of firewood, neatly stacked nearby, according to a newspaper report of 1893.
Piles of brick rubble still litter the ground; there is no more firewood to be seen.