Place Type
Population - Place Name
Location
24.15kms NorthEast of Adelaide - Driving 30.7 km (42 mins)
642.77kms NorthWest of Melbourne - Driving 730 km (8 hours 3 mins)
Address & Contact
Adelaide Mannum Rd
Chain Of Ponds SA 5231
Phone: N/A
Email: N/A
Web: N/A
Information
CHAIN OF PONDS
The Chain of Ponds was orginally the valley of Miller's Creek from Kersbrook to the Prairie, Philptown was the locality at the junction.
A small settlement established by the South Australian Company was named Chain of Ponds. First settled early in the 1840s, the township was laid out after the opening of the Main North Eastern Road with the road to Kersbrook and the Barossa in the 1850s. Oliver Philp established a hotel there and from this, the town of Chain of Ponds developed. It was a small community (described in the early days as a hamlet), but played a 'stopover' role in the difficult trek across the Ranges. Named for a run of waterholes, the settlement was compulsorily acquired in the 1970's by the Government amid fears that pollution from the township would affect water in the adjacent Millbrook Reservoir. The town was then reported to include two post office buildings, institute, church, service station, a handful of cottages and the old Morning Star Hotel. Little more than a cemetery exists as a reminder of Chain of Ponds, though it appears on maps as a navigation point. The road then crosses an arm of the Millbrook Reservoir, which was built early last century. Much of Millbrook township was swallowed up by the reservoir.
it was demolished to make way for the Millbrook Reservoir, which was constructed between 1914 and 1918 to control the flow of the upper Torrens River and supply the eastern suburbs of Adelaide from an appropriate elevation. In the 1970s, Chain of Ponds was also demolished to safeguard against water pollution in the reservoir.[2]
Little more than a cemetery exists as a reminder of Chain of Ponds, though it appears on maps as a navigation point.