Place Type
Recreation - Tourist Attraction
Location
22.74kms NorthEast of Adelaide - Driving 30.7 km (44 mins)
642.95kms NorthWest of Melbourne - Driving 728 km (8 hours 3 mins)
Address & Contact
100 Sunning Hill Rd
Millbrook SA 5231
Phone: N/A
Email: N/A
Web: N/A
Information
High on a hill above Millbrook reservoir is a seat of all learning where knowledge has been passed on generation by generation for another century. It's the Millbrook School, 1879 - 2007.
When the village of Millbrook drowned the school lived on. From an uncertain beginning, through big classes and small, wars and peace, It's not known exactly when schooling began at Millbrook and it was not until 1869 that the first mention of the district's haphazard learning appeared in Education Department records. There was schooling before the present school was established in 1879. The first emergence of today's centenarian was in September 1876 when the Observer newspaper reported a meeting of residents at Cudlee Creek to discuss the building of a school at Millbrook. This meeting bore fruit and in 1878 work began on Millbrook school to accommodate 80 pupils and a teacher's residence. The cost was £977.10. The reason why the school was sited on the hill above the Millbrook township is not known. Could it be that this was one of the state's first "area schools" and although it was called Millbrook it, was sited in a high and central position to serve the whole district and not just Millbrook. There were students from Cudlee Creek, Prairie, Chain of Ponds, Hollands Creek, Sunning Hill as well as Millbrook. Whatever the reason, the decision to put Millbrook School up on the hill was a lifesaver when the valley drowned.
In 1879 the school was opened with Mr John Risely as the first head teacher.
Millbrook School is still operating today in modern buildings across the road from the ruins of the old building that was destroyed in bushfires some years ago.