Springvale” is one of those places I call “HOME”. It’s not where is I live now, but it is where I grew up. It’s a place on a dirt road, a little out of the tiny town of Gumeracha in the Adelaide Hills and is surrounded by rolling green hills (though they’re very brown in summer), and has cows as neighbours. Trust me it’s very picturesque, and the surrounding hills, creeks and hay sheds were my playground. Here’s a question for you: when you have a house name, are you naming the house or the land? In my case I think it is the land, as there were two houses on the land called Springvale, but for this post I’m just writing about the lower house. Growing up, I never knew our house (or land) had a name, and thought it was completely awesome when I discovered that it did. Not that my family ever used it. I still thought it was nice though! Anyway recently I’ve been doing some house history, and delving into the history of the “Springvale” which started back in the 1840s with the Randell family, then the Green family, then the Butler’s, and then Phillips’ (well, that is the very condensed version of it). I still haven’t worked out who actually built the house, or who actually named it – the Randell’s or the Greens? Either way it has a history that dates back to at least the later 1800s. For this Then and Now post, I have to say a HUGE thankyou to Glenis Reid who compiled the “William & Fanny Green and their Descendants” book, and is connected to the Green family that lived in this house before I did. (To be...
