Verdun is a small town in the
Adelaide Hills, Australia, on the road from
Hahndorf
Hahndorf is a small town in the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia. Currently an important tourism spot, it has previously been a centre for farming and services.
Geography
It is accessible from Adelaide, the South Australian capital, ...
to
Balhannah
Balhannah is a town in the Adelaide Hills about 30 km southeast of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It was established in 1839 as a farming community by James Turnbull Thomson, who built the first hotel. The town soon grew to inc ...
. At the 2011 Australian Census the town recorded a population of 662.
Verdun is approximately 4 km from Hahndorf and 5 km from
Bridgewater. There is one school, one pub and a licensed café/restaurant situated in the building previously occupied by a service station and general store. There is a cafe across the road from the local pub as well as a busy restaurant named Grunthal (named after the original german name of Verdun) near the freeway.
Verdun originally had the German name ''Grunthal'',
after being named by the
Prussian
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
settlers who established the town. The town was renamed in 1917 after one of the bloodiest battles of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun (french: Bataille de Verdun ; german: Schlacht um Verdun ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front in France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north ...
.
The Hills Christian Community School opened in February 1983 at the site of the former Verdun Primary School.
See also
*
Australian place names changed from German names
During World War I, many German or German-sounding place names in Australia were changed due to anti-German sentiment. The presence of German-derived place names was seen as an affront to the war effort at the time.
The names were often change ...
References
Towns in South Australia
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