Mount Osmond Adelaide, South Australia |
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Population | 2,375 (2011 census) | ||||||||||||
Postcode(s) | 5064 | ||||||||||||
Location | 5 km (3 mi) from Adelaide | ||||||||||||
LGA(s) | City of Burnside | ||||||||||||
State electorate(s) | Bragg | ||||||||||||
Federal Division(s) | Sturt | ||||||||||||
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Mount Osmond is a small suburb of 2,497 people in the South Australian capital city of Adelaide. It is part of the City of Burnside local government area and located in the foothills of the Adelaide Hills, five kilometres south east of the city centre. The suburb is high on the hill of the same name, which is the last hill on the right when approaching Adelaide down the South Eastern Freeway before the road levels out onto the Adelaide Plains. It is bounded to the north by the suburb of Beaumont, to the north-east by Burnside, to the east by Waterfall Gully, to the south by Leawood Gardens/Eagle On The Hill, to the south-west by Urrbrae, to the west by Glen Osmond and to the north-west by St Georges.
The suburb is at a high elevation in the Mount Lofty Ranges, and provides views over Adelaide as well as containing a renowned golf course and country club. Mining operations in the 19th century gave the area notoriety, but it has since developed slowly into a small, quiet and secluded suburb.
Mount Osmond is within the traditional lands of the Kaurna people, and forms part of the Mount Lofty Ranges and is therefore part of the Dreamtime story of the ancestor-creator Nganno. According to the legend, Nganno was wounded in a battle and laid down to die, forming the Mount Lofty Ranges.
When Adelaide was first planned and mapped out by Col. William Light, Mount Osmond received the three allotments 1070, 1277 and 1278. While much of Adelaide was relatively quickly bought (but not necessarily settled) Mount Osmond did not enjoy any early buyers. The first reported activity in the area was after the mining rush of Glen Osmond due to the Wheal Watkins and Wheal Gawler mines. Lot 1277 yielded a mine in Slaughterhouse Gully but it was worked only briefly. Subsequent finds of bluestone proved fruitful and the mineral was extracted until 1900, when mining ended and the last of the mines were either filled in or cordoned off.