Tim the Yowie Man: Is this the oldest photo of Canberra?

Having built several of the paths around the church when he managed a prominent Canberra landscaping business, Robert knows this place like the back of his hand.

In fact, Robert, who is the great great grandson of the merchant and pastoralist Robert Campbell who established Duntroon Estate in 1825, and whose family provided the land for and at least half the cost of the construction of the church in the early 1840s, knows most of Canberra like the back of his hand. And why wouldn't he - Robert has called the capital and surrounds home for almost all his 92 years.

"Every time I visit St John's, I pay a visit over there," he quietly states, solemnly leading me to the edge of a rusting wrought-iron fence that encloses a dozen or so graves and a private columbarium.

It's the Campbell family plot and while the original Robert isn't buried here (although he died at Duntroon, he was buried in a family vault in Parramatta) for many of Robert's family - including his mother, father, and earlier this year, his wife Helen - this is their final resting spot.

But we haven't met to dwell on morbid matters relating to one of Canberra's pioneering families. Far from it. Robert has two historical treats to share with me. The first is in an envelope which he excitedly retrieves from his jacket pocket.

"This is Canberra's first photo" he asserts, proudly showing me a black and white photo, with St John's Church in the foreground and the building we now call the Schoolhouse Museum behind it.

Robert made a copy of the photo while visiting ancestors in Scotland in 1985 and since then has kept the photo squirreled away in one of his many photo albums that bulge with images of early Canberra.

A small copy is also displayed inside the Schoolhouse Museum where its significance is partly lost in a sea of other revealing images of the 19th-century Limestone Plains.

While it's hard to determine the exact age of Robert's photo, it's highly likely it was taken in mid-1864.

"I understand the family hired a photographer to take a series of photographs and over time the others have been misplaced or lost and this is the only one that survived," he explains.

"It was definitely taken after April 1864, as that is when the Schoolhouse building was all but destroyed by a fire - and you can see its distinctive three chimneys post-fire in the mid-background," he explains. The photo also features the old tower of St John's church which was dismantled later that year and replaced by the current tower in 1870.

"Tell me someone who has an older photo because I've tried for almost 40 years without luck," states Robert. I can't think of one, can you?

While strolling towards the white-washed walls of the Schoolhouse building, Robert hands me a much bigger envelope - the second reason for our rendezvous - a 16-page document in which he passionately argues a hypothesis, that contrary to popular belief, the Schoolhouse building is actually the oldest building in Canberra.

While the history books usually bestow the honour of the oldest extant building on Duntroon Dairy (circa 1832) or Duntroon House (1833), Robert believes the schoolhouse predates both structures by several years and may even pre-date the long-demolished stone cottage built for Joshua Moore's men at Acton a few years prior to that.

Despite the National Trust (ACT) stating on its website "St John's Schoolhouse was built on the Limestone Plains circa 1845", Robert believes the stone building was initially built as a shepherd's hut for James Ainslie soon after he arrived in 1825, and that it was simply converted to a schoolhouse in the early 1840s.

"It has been a pet project for me for many years," reveals Robert who details several main arguments for his theory.

"When Ainslie and his men first arrived with a mob of 700 sheep, they needed somewhere to stay. The area selected for their abode had to be in a place where the sheep could be guarded from wild dog attack - the site [of the schoolhouse building] was ideal [as] it is on a knob of land overlooking and adjacent to the surrounding grazing area," says Robert.

"I believe the same shepherds would have gathered paddock stones for the building ... similar lime mortar was used in the construction of the schoolhouse building as that at Joshua Moore's first stone cottage at nearby Acton and the older parts of Robert Campbell's residence at Duntroon.

MORE YOWIE MAN:

"Further, in the 1840s, when a school was needed, if they decided to build it from scratch, they wouldn't have built it in the open paddocks like where it is now - they would have chosen a more sheltered location ... but they didn't for it was easier just to repurpose 'Ainslie's Stone Hut'."

Unfortunately, many of the documents which could potentially support Robert's hypothesis were destroyed over a century ago in a series of accidental fires involving Campbell family records, but that hasn't stopped Robert from enthusiastically attempting to uncover the exact age of one of our city's most historic buildings.

If you are aware of any documentation that could support Robert's hypothesis, he'd love to hear from you.

Ever wondered the origins of the tall solitary pine between the north- and sound-bound lanes on Yarra Glen, near the Carruthers Street overpass?

It's all that's left of a windbreak at the former Yarra Glen Homestead, Robert Campbell's childhood home where he lived with his younger brother, Curtis, and parents George and Nancy (Reid) Campbell.

George, a World War I veteran, acquired the property in 1928 after the previous returned soldier who leased the property under the Commonwealth Soldier Settlement Scheme had failed due to lack of farming experience. However, as George had worked as a jackaroo before the war, he had the necessary skills to build a family farm out of the settlement.

"The pine trees provided a wind break for the orchard, and the house was situated just a little bit further towards Red Hill," recalls Robert.

Despite being almost 70 years ago, Robert remembers the day a town planner visited his parents in the early 1950s.

"He stood on the front veranda and asked my mother, 'Do you know where we are standing is on the edge of a road that's going to eventually go through here?'," recalls Robert.

"That's when we learned that our days at Yarra Glen were numbered ... when the lease on the house expired soon after, we had to leave."

Robert lived at Yarra Glen until he was about 20, when he and his wife Helen built 'Arawang', a new homestead, just south of Chapman and west of Kambah, but when he thinks of his childhood, his thoughts always return to Yarra Glen.

"It's a lovely old tree, I'm glad it's still there as it brings back so many memories every time I pass it," says Robert, who hopes "it survives any future road or light rail work".

Rating: Hard

Clue: Near 'Fox Hollow'

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to tym@iinet.net.au The first correct email sent after 10am, Saturday 14 October wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.

Last week: Congratulations to John Feint of Gilmore who the first reader to identify last week's photo as the Homeworld Tower in the Tuggeranong Town Centre.

St John's first tower was struck by lightning on February 6, 1851 and the event is colourfully depicted in Gray Smith's illustration which appears in Samuel Shumack's 1977 paperback version of Tales and Legends of Canberra Pioneers (Australian National University Press). Details of the lightning strike are sketchy, but I'm not sure it was as explosive as portrayed in Smith's watercolour which has the good reverend running for cover and a shepherd clutching a couple of frightened lambs. The tower later suffered a subsiding foundation resulting in a one-metre lean. It was demolished in 1864 and replaced by the current tower in 1870. The spire was added eight years later.

DON'T MISS: St John's Annual Community Fair on Saturday October 14 from 9am-2pm. 45 Constitution Avenue, Reid. Fun for all the family.

Cath Sheehan, who admits she's "lived in Canberra long enough to still call it new Parliament House", reports that "Shawn" - the fossilised collection of shells and coral in the marble foyer floor - was mobbed at last Sunday's open day. "Trying to see Shawn close-up was like trying to see the Mona Lisa at Le Louvre," she reports.

CONTACT TIM: Email: tym@iinet.net.au or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, GPO Box 606, Civic, ACT, 2601

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