Nile

 

That’s better. This is the middle of the town. You can see the street sign indicating the main intersection (two signs: ‘Cox St’ in white and ‘Memorial Playground’ in blue).

There’s a handful of houses there on the left, along with the major communication infrastructure (post box & public phone); on the right (not visible here) is the fire station. Beyond these, is the other intersection (Church Lane) and the war memorial. The road then turn to the right and across the ‘bridge’, past the old pub and a couple of other buildings.

There’s the fire station.

House next door to the fire station.

The other houses in the main street.

The main intersection.

The Clarendon version of local history says the town of Lymington was created by the estate owner, James Cox, as somewhere for his workers to live. After all, a good village squire needs a village.

In the 1860s, Lymington must have been quite a busy little village too. There were two licensed premises (listed as the Lymington Inn and the Nile Hotel) and two mail coaches that ran between Lymington and Launceston, Aytons & Hanneys.

On my web site, I have an advertisement for the sale of Ayton’s businesses (the hotel, stores and coach service), which it’s about the same period.

Lymington? This was the original name of the village, but there is a Lymington in the south of the state, so to avoid confusion, about 1910, Lymington (North) was renamed Nile (or the Nile as locals call it).

The other side of the intersection.

There are a number of older properties in this area, and this water race provided irrigation for them (and there ends my knowledge of it, other than it went as far as Strathmore).

Beside the water race, is the Memorial Playground

with Memorial Swings, Memorial Slide and Memorial Seats. I have no idea what it’s a memorial to though.

The dirt road off to the left here leads to St Peters Anglican Church, built in the 1850s on land donated by the Coxes. Across the bridge, yes, it was a bridge, you can see the roof of the former Nile Hotel.

Further down the road, are two more buildings of interest.

This, according to a photo in the Evandale History Room, is the “Chapel of Ease” at Nile. Wikipedia has an article about “Chapel of Ease”s but it doesn’t leave me any more informed about the purpose of this one. Mother tells me her mother had her pre-wedding party here, so I assume it doubled as the village hall.

Opposite the chapel, is this little place. I wonder if it might have been the second hotel? Mother says the second pub was further down the road (from the brick hotel), near the hall. “Opposite it?” “Maybe.” No one has yet told me anything else, either way.

There’s also this cottage hidden behind the bushes, just before the hall/chapel, but it’s almost directly opposite the old hotel, so I don’t think that would be “further down the road” and I vaguely recall the second place was weatherboard.

It does have an interesting barn though.

From across the bridge, looking back towards the centre of the village.