Martindale Hall

Martindale Hall is a Georgian style mansion near Mintaro, South Australia which appeared in the film Picnic at Hanging Rock.ConstructionMartindale Hall was built for a wealthy bachelor pastoralist, Edmund Bowman Jr (1855 - 1921). The architect was Ebenezer Gregg of London, the chief supervisor was Adelaide architect Edward John Woods and the builder was R. Huckson, who completed the work in 1880. Due to the specialist nature of the work involved, 50 of the 60 tradesmen were brought from England, and they returned when it was completed. The hall has some 32 rooms and also a large seven-room cellar, and its environs at the time also included a polo ground, a racecourse, a boating lake and a cricket pitch.HistoryA decade after its construction, debt and drought forced the Bowmans to sell all their holdings. William Tennant Mortlock (son of William Ranson Mortlock) bought Martindale Hall in 1891. His son, John Andrew Tennant Mortlock, developed Martindale Station and built up an impressive collection of artwork which was displayed at the Hall. Dying childless, his wife became the heir to the Mortlock fortune, and she bequeathed Martindale Hall and the estate to the University of Adelaide in 1979 upon her death.