the gumbank archives
Echoes of our Heritage
A homestead with a long memory
1839
The first arrivals
A shepherd named Charles Newman builds a hut on the slopes of Mount Charles. As the district's first settler, he is said to have given the hill its name. That same year, three Dunn brothers step ashore at Holdfast Bay: Charles, a blacksmith; George, a mason and James, a shoemaker.
1840
The Voyage
A year after his brothers, William Dunn arrives aboard the Fairfield with his wife Elizabeth and their children. His brother John follows on the Lysander and soon builds the flour mill at Mount Barker that will grind the family's wheat. The colony they find is barely four years old and close to collapse. Within a year, William and Elizabeth lose their infant son, Edward.
1843
Gumbank Begins
William is granted eighty acres of woodland at the foot of Mount Charles, the first of the Dunns to settle there. Among the great gums, beside the road to the Bremer, he raises a modest home of timber and earth, whitewashed and roofed with thatch. The family clears the land by hand and sends their wheat down the valley to brother John's mill at Mount Barker.
1850s
The homestead grows
Gold is found in Victoria, flour prices soar and the Dunns prosper. Along the road, the family builds fine two-storey homes. Gumbank grows into the homestead that stands today, with a great L-shaped barn and in time, a busy blacksmith's workshop.
1866
Fine Wheat and good wine
A travellers' guide describes Charleston as a village of 150 people, praised for its fine wheat and good wine, with daily coaches to Adelaide. Within a few decades rust ended the wheat and the Hills' vineyards were pulled out, until Pinot returned in the 1970s.
1852
a chapel on the hill
The devout Dunn family raised a small Methodist chapel above the crossroads, with William among its first trustees. He rests beside it today.
1850s
The Dunns Prosper
Gold is found in Victoria, flour prices soar and the Dunns' crops and processing business grow. Along the road, the family builds fine two-storey homes. Gumbank grows into the homestead that stands today, with a great L-shaped barn and in time, a busy blacksmith's workshop.
1857
Charlestown
Brother Charles Dunn draws up plans for a village at the crossroads and names it Charlestown. A mason from Mount Torrens buys the first lots and opens the Charles Town Hotel. Within a decade, the village has a school, a post office and daily coaches to Adelaide.
1900
a gift to the village
Gold is found in Victoria, flour prices soar and the Dunns prosper. Along the road, the family builds fine two-storey homes. Gumbank grows into the homestead that stands today, with a great L-shaped barn and in time, a busy blacksmith's workshop.
2026
Gumbank welcomes its newest custodians, a local family from just down the road. From the first day, the house felt warm and settled, as though nearly two centuries of family life had left something good in its walls. Now that feeling is shared with every guest who stays.
a new chapter
Elizabeth Dunn with her children Mary, John, Thomasin, George and Robert at Gumbank.
c. 1855-1860
Life here was measured in seasons, not schedules: clearing, sowing, shearing, harvest. Neighbours were family and the chapel bell called everyone together. It was harder than anything most of us will know. But there was something in it we've lost: time to work with your hands, to sit at one long table, to know everyone by name.
We can't go back. But for a weekend, Gumbank offers a place to slow down, where the evenings still end by the fire.
*With thanks to the Dunn family for preserving Gumbank’s history and to the many records and recollections that have helped tell its story, including The Dunn Family of Charleston, Dunn Family Down Under, Lobethal: Valley of Praise, the Onkaparinga Heritage Survey, the Charleston Community Centre, K. S. Clarke’s historical records, Jewel Casket of Memories and local historian Denis (Denisbin).*
Shearers
c. 1890
a simpler time
