Early Settlers Cottage – Keith

About

The cottage is believed to be one of the earliest buildings in Keith, being built by William Davies in 1894, on the first suburban allotment taken up for farming following the surveying of the town of Keith in 1889. It is located on Emu Flat Road (100m west of Densley Road).

The cottage is constructed of local limestone and consists of a small four-roomed limestone rubble cottage with a low-pitched iron roof and two massive fireplaces at one end. It has two bedrooms, a parlour, and a kitchen. Three stone buttresses were added in the 1920s to strengthen the bedrooms’ wall.

Its location is unusual, for people who farmed the suburban allotments mostly lived in the town, and few houses were built on them. It represents the early agricultural settlement in the Tatiara region on the main Adelaide to Melbourne Dukes Highway.

The cottage was bought by the National Trust and now operates as a house museum.