Sunday History Photo / SA

Cudlee Creek is a small town near Adelaide, South Australia. It is located in the Adelaide Hills Council local government area
The name Cudlee Creek is probably derived from Aboriginal Kaurna or possibly Peramangk language meaning the Dingo's Creek.
The local Primary School, Millbrook Primary School, closed in 2010 after 131 years. The population of the school when it closed was 15 students, Millbrook school was also the school I attended from grade 3 to grade 7, and my Mother also attended this same school .




The first European inhabitants of Cudlee Creek settled in 1838, when William Kelly, from the Isle of Man, came to the area and established the Sulby Glen estate. A district history states that Sulby Glen was "...well-known for cheese-making. Quite a lot of wheat was grown; fruit trees were planted and a lot of potatoes marketed." It became a significant exporter of apples and pears, and a cold store built in 1922 for a fruitgrowers' cooperative is the most prominent building in the town.



For anyone who has taken a drive up to the Adelaide Hills there is a good chance that sometime or another you’ve driven along the Gorge Road and ended up either at, or driving through the tiny town of Cudlee Creek. Now you’d know that Gorge Road is long, it’s windy, it is steep, and it has a lot of big rock cliffs.
Next time you travel that road, here’s something to keep in mind …. IT WAS MADE BY HAND. That’s right! Not a machine in sight! It is simply the work of lots of men with picks, shovels and trolleys! And below are the pics to prove it.

Now for those of you who DO know the area, don’t you think that next time you travel along the road from Athelstone to Millbrook to Cudlee Creek (or viceversa), you’ll appreciate it just that little bit more thinking of the effort that actually went into making it?

There is no exact date as to when these photos were taken, or for when the road was opened, there is no doubt that various parts of the Gorge Road were built and opened at different times, but from what I have been able to find so far the Cudlee Creek end of it was likely to have been constructed in the 1920s.



For those that aren’t familiar with the area, the blue line on the map above shows the whole of Gorge Road. to the tiny town of Cudlee Creek is. There’s a few houses, a few farms, a church, a deli/post office and a wildlife park, so yes it’s a small country town.

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