Australian Town and Country Journal at KellyGang 26/3/1870
Jottings by the Way
(FROM OUR TRAVELLING REPORTER.)
THE ALBURY DISTRICT
Rain is a very scarce commodity in this district; the skirt of many a storm going on in the distant ranges shows on the horizon, or even overhead, to tantalize the dusty town, and on an extremely favourable occasion one drop to a square yard may fall; but as a rule it is a comparatively rainless country. On remarking to a resident, in the simple language of a correspondent of the Press, “The threatening aspect of the gathering clouds must surely now eventuate in a pluvial discharge" he said when he had picked out the meaning of the above remark,
“Shure now, be you new in Albury? You must; the only rain we ever got-is dust."
Of that article certainly there was enough all the time I was there, the broad streets affording ample scope for every vehicle or horseman to raise a cloud which marked his course till lost in distance or direction. The town is laid out on the Victorian plan, straight, rectangular and broad, combining the maximum of heat, sun and dust, with the minimum of shade and comfort. No, we have not attained to a perfect plan yet for towns in our climate. A compromise between the East and the West-something more of Oriental exclusion and shade - will have to be imported into our designs before we shall lay out a town perfectly suited to tho dry, hot, tempestuous summers of Australia.
The site of Albury is well chosen for a large town, and large town a few years hence it will be, when the Victorian Railway terminating at Wodonga, on the other side of the river, shall have made Albury the depôt of the Riverine traffic to Melbourne. The town is growing; building is going on, and ground is rising in value; Townsend, Dean and Kiewa streets can boast several blocks and single buildings that would not discredit Ballarat or Melbourne; and of the public buildings three are worthy of remark - notably the hospital, not so much for its architectural display as its utility.
The hospital is built on rising ground to the west of the town, and by the road going down tho river to Howlong and Corowa. It should be a healthy site, spacious and well-drained, and kept in excellent order. Important additions in tho shape of a tank holding 14,000 gallons of water, a kitchen and fine range, a laundry, pantry, bedroom and verandah, all for the moderate sum of L300, have just been made in brick - the tank costing L100 out of that sum. The courteous gentleman, Mr Wallworth of Sandhurst, the superintendent and dispenser, informs me that 150 patients are the average through the year, and 15 the daily average. The building is also a Benevolent Asylum pro. tem but this arrangement is about to be altered. The house committee have been paying for their drugs by contract, but this also is to be altered, and it is anticipated that 75 per cent, will be saved by the committee dispensing their own drugs by the hands of a resident dispenser. Mr Wallworth showed me the Murray leeches, and gave them a high character; there was also a smaller leech caught in the tributary creeks, which has the ridiculous habit of boring into tho river leech, and burying his person in the carcass of the large leech. -Mem. : Never put them together.
Side by side with the hospital stands the gay residence of such of her Majesty's ill-used subjects as happen to have had the Habeas Corpus Act suspended over them. It was some time before I could make this building out; my final conclusion was, that it was tho private residence of an Albury Nabob - the more especially as the "wall" or fence round it was of a very frail nature.
The Convent lately completed, and opened with imposing ceremony, is an ornament to the town; the site is on the south, and the ground level, so that it is seen conspicuous from any direction. The elevation, though varying greatly from the ordinary conventual orders of architecture, is picturesque and striking, and the plan almost unique, being a hexagon of three stories crowned with à light tapering bell-turret. Off the N. E. and S. E. faces of the hexagon go two wings, each of two stories, with coped and gabled ends; and on the eastern face, and joining each of these wings, is a triple arched verandah and balcony. The building is in red brick with white brick quoins and facings. The enclosing wall is of granite, with straight joints, and a heavy parapet of unhewn irregular granite blocks projects over it - the whole, with its massive gates and pillars, being remarkably effective.
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