Nairne, South Australia


Nairne is a small township in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia. Nairne is about from Mount Barker, South Australia, in the federal Division of Mayo and in the state electoral district of Kavel. At the 2016 census, Nairne had a population of 4,842.

History

Nairne was founded by Matthew Smillie in 1839 and named for his wife's family.
In 1854 the District Council of Nairne was established to govern local affairs of the town and its surrounds extending past Callington to the east.
Chapman's Bacon Factory was founded in Nairne in 1899 by the Chapman family and was closed in 2002 and has been undergoing development in 2019 to become a Supermarket for the rapidly growing township.
In the late 1920s, the route of the Princes Highway, part of the main road route between Adelaide and Melbourne was changed to pass through Nairne, with road improvements from Mount Barker through Nairne to Kanmantoo. In turn, the route through Nairne became the Old Princes Highway in the 1970s with the construction of the South Eastern Freeway.
In 2003, the main street was transformed for a section of the movie The Honourable Wally Norman, which was filmed using various areas of the Adelaide Hills, including Mount Barker, Nairne and Lobethal.

Demographics

Nairne has several shops on the main street, a school, and three churches. It is about from the town of Mount Barker and about from Littlehampton. Nairne also has two hotels The Miller's Arms and The District Hotel as well as being home to Howard's Vineyard and Lot 100 which houses a gin distillery, brewery, winery and fruit juice manufacturing. Green Valley Strawberries is a popular local farm with a cafe and farm gate sales of seasonal fruit during summer.