Forest Range & Lenswood Local History

05/09/2026

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING - coming soon

02/09/2026

UPDATED 4SEP26
We do have some clever folk on our FB. Yes it is Lenswood Memorial Park from the hill across the road. The photo is taken late 1930s from the hill behind what is now Ross's. At that time the property extended across the road and included the current oval and hill behind. The property had two houses. Sunnyside was the main house and is now owned by Ross's, across the road from the oval. The other house belonged to the sone of the family. The family, at this time, was the Lawrance Family. Ben senior and his wife Violet Lloyd purchased the land. The most famous owner before them was George Monk (see story link below). The Lawrance children married locally, Ben jnr (called Frank) married Mavis Nichols, Ivy married Len Stafford, Amy (called Greta) married Clem Norton and Syd married Alice Lawrence (no relation). Syd and Alice later moved when they started the Lenswood Garage in 1949 along with Keith Brown. Until then Syd used his sheds at his home for garage work. Thos sheds are shown in the image. The land for the oval was sold to the community in 1947 for the building of Lenswood Memorial Park.

MORE INFORMATION AND PHOTOS

Sunnyside (and George Monk) - https://ehive.com/collections/203483/objects/1848977/sunnyside-694-swamp-road-lenswood

Lawrance family - https://ehive.com/objects?query=association_keyword%3A%22Lawrance%22&sort=name&facet=account_name_facet%3AThe+Forest+Range+and+Lenswood+History+Group&facet=association_keyword_facet%3ALawrance

Lenswood Memorial Park - https://ehive.com/collections/203483/objects/1849257/lenswood-memorial-park-development-693-swamp-road-lenswood

Garages -https://historylfr.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/placesofinterest_garages-1.pdf

WAS:
Who can guess where this photo is? Where is it taken from and what is the content? Do you know the year? What else can you tell us? See how you go with your guesses and we will post the answer later this week. If you have photos to share please contact us.

25/08/2026

Today someone asked some questions about our gold mining history. Remember we had three separate gold rushes in Forest Range. Here is a link to an overview of our research done in 2021 when we held a display at the Forest Range oval. Do you have anything new to share? Follow the slide show on the page below to learn more.

What do you know about our gold mining history? The History Group investigated our mining history for a display in 2021.  You can review that information below: Forest Range gold miners. Court…

19/08/2026

Weather, we seem to talk about it every day. Too hot. Too cold. Too dry. Too wet. What weather stories and photos do you have to share?
Did you know about the 1940 hail storm. Follow the links to read about this storm, and then, hunt up your weather photo and share them here so we can expand our new weather section.

We will be adding more posts about weather events over time, Review those added already below: Hail IND_Hail_April_1940Download Follow this link to view more articles on hail in our region Snow Fol…

13/08/2026

Early settlers moved from one part of the hills to another. They married partners from nearby towns. Often we move slightly outside of Forest Range and Lenswood with stories and this story takes us to Cudlee Creek, just. However, the family is deeply intertwined with one of our earliest families, still with many living in our district Read on.

Henry Newman Coventry was born on 24th December 1903 at Athelstone. He was the eldest of 8 children born to Alice Smith and Frank Coventry. As the eldest, Henry left school at an early age and work…

08/08/2026

TOMMY THE SWEATER --- This one may be tricking people cos most won't know who this is - his real name was Samuel Gascoyne Norton..
There are lots of TTT (tall tales tellers) in our district. Do you know of Tommy the sweater? Tommy shared some stories with the SA papers in the late 1930s early 1940s. Click below to read more.

“Tommy the Sweater” was a regular contributor  to South Australian newspapers in the early 1900s writing letters and articles about local matters and issues of the day.  His lively and of…

04/08/2026

Our oral history collection continues to grow. We have a backlog recorded and are working through them to publish. Today we have finished editing a recording completed with Alan (Oopy) Norton in 2024. Follow the link below to learn about his family, his neighbours, his working life and his sporting life. Click on the catalogue link called Audio Files to access eight recordings from Alan.

Alan John Norton (known as Oopy) was the fourth and youngest child of Oliver Coll Norton [1899-1966] and Florence Evelyn Amy Norton (nee East) [1905-1959] of Forest Range SA. He .was born on 11 July 1937 at the Uraidla Hospital. In September 2024 Oopy shared his memories of childhood in Forest Range...

03/08/2026

Just a bit of fun today ... a member of our community with too much time on his hands has used some of the photos on our catalogue to make this video. Not 100% factual but fun anyway.

A creek crossing split a community.