Uraidla (, ) is a small town in the Adelaide Hills of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, Australia. At the , Uraidla had a population of 575. However it also sits at the centre of a larger population catchment of rural townships which include Summertown, Piccadilly, Ashton, Basket Range, Carey Gully, Norton Summit and Cherryville. The name is derived from the

Kaurna The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kaurn ...

name Yuridla, which means "two ears" and originally referred to the two nearby peaks of

Mt Lofty Mount Lofty (, elevation AHD) is the highest point in the southern Mount Lofty Ranges. It is located about east of the Adelaide city centre, within the Cleland National Park in the Adelaide Hills area of South Australia. The mountain's s ...

and Mt Bonython, and also relates to the Dreaming story of Ngarnu, a giant from the east.

History

Once the home of the

Peramangk The Peramangk are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands traditionally comprise the Adelaide Hills, as well as lands to the west of the Murray River in mid Murraylands and through to the northern part of the Fleurieu Peninsula in the Au ...

Aboriginal people, European settlement commenced in the mid nineteenth century, a primary school opened in 1871 and the town was formally established in the 1880s. A tiny red brick building in the main street bears a plaque declaring that it was the local branch of the Scottish and Welsh Bank. The original courthouse (now a cottage) still stands on the corner of Swamp Road and Greenhill Road. The original general store still exists as a two-storey house near the junction of Days Road and Greenhill Road. The mainstreet of Uraidla was originally planted with a double avenue of European Elms. Only four of these remain.

Etymology

The name Uraidla is derived from local Aboriginal origins. The neighbouring

Kaurna people The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kaurna ...

(from the

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

plains) and a local subgroup known as Peramangk, had a tale about an ancestral giant who fell in battle and whose body formed part of the

Mount Lofty Ranges The Mount Lofty Ranges are a range of mountains in the Australian state of South Australia which for a small part of its length borders the east of Adelaide. The part of the range in the vicinity of Adelaide is called the Adelaide Hills and ...

, with his ears forming

Mount Lofty Mount Lofty (, elevation AHD) is the highest point in the southern Mount Lofty Ranges. It is located about east of the Adelaide city centre, within the Cleland National Park in the Adelaide Hills area of South Australia. The mountain's s ...

and

Mount Bonython Mount Bonython (, above sea level) is one of two major peaks in the Adelaide Hills visible from Adelaide. The other, about a kilometre to the south and some 50 m higher, is Mount Lofty. Mount Bonython is named after Sir John Langdon Bonython a ...

. The name ''Yurrēidla'' thus derives from the

words ''yurre'' (ear) and the suffix denoting location, ''-illa'' (Teichelmann & Schurmann 1840Teichelmann, C. G.; C. W. Schürmann

840 __NOTOC__ Year 840 ( DCCCXL) was a leap year starting on Thursday in the Julian calendar, the 840th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 840th year of the 1st millennium, the 40th year of the 9th century, and the ...

(1982). Outlines of a grammar, vocabulary and phraseology of the Aboriginal language of South Australia spoken by the natives in and for some distance around Adelaide. Tjintu Books. .). This was later corrupted to Uraidla and adopted as the name of the town.

Industries

Uraidla and the surrounding area is an agricultural district with vegetable market gardens on large scale producing leek, cabbage and

lettuce Lettuce (''Lactuca sativa'') is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable, but sometimes for its stem and seeds. Lettuce is most often used for salads, although it is also seen in other kinds of food, ...

, with

apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

and cherry

orchards An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of lar ...

, along with

vineyard A vineyard (; also ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is known as viticulture. Vineya ...

s producing many local

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

vintages. Local wineries that are part of the Adelaide Hills wine district include Parish Hills Wines and Barratt Wines. The Uraidla Hotel had been closed for several years from 2013, but was refurbished in 2016 and now enjoys pride of place in the town with an eclectic mix of decor, and sourcing local produce, wines, beers and ciders. A bottleshop and bakery, also run by the Uraidla Hotel now occupy the adjacent building that once housed the Squash Courts. A converted church across from the hotel dubbed 'Lost in a Forest' provides local wines and wood oven pizzas, whilst the name of a former local restaurant 'The Aristologist' has been resurrected n the form of a Tapas Bar in nearby Summertown. The central oval and showgrounds are used annually for the historic Uraidla and Summertown Show, drawing many hundreds of people, traditionally in mid-February; shifted in 2017 to early November. Uraidla is also traditionally a centre for sport with Australian Rules Football,

Netball Netball is a ball sport played on a court by two teams of seven players. It is among a rare number of sports which have been created exclusively for female competitors. The sport is played on indoor and outdoor netball courts and is specifical ...

Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

and

Lawn Bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

the main sports. The Football Club Rooms and Bowling Club both have licensed premises. Uraidla and nearby Summertown and

Carey Gully Carey Gully is a small town in the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia. The name of the town is taken from one of the early settlers of the area, Paddy Carey, and was originally called Carey's Gully, (This can be seen at the town's War M ...

are serviced by a mixed business General Store and Post Office and a Village Pharmacy and Health Spa, Hairdresser, Civil Engineering and the Uraidla Family Practice. Private massage therapists, chiropractors, artists and craftspeople, a metal foundry, a salvage warehouse and a freestone quarry also operate in the town or immediate area. The former Returned Servicemen's League Hall in the main street is now being used by the Country Fire Service as the hub for the several local fire crews of Ashton, Summertown, Carey Gully and Piccadilly. During Emergency Fire Events, this site is used for strategic coordination, media interaction, broadcast by television crews and the adjacent Oval is used by helicopters as a landing site.

References

External links

Adelaide Hills Council
{{authority control Towns in South Australia