Derwent Valley Visitor Information Centre, New Norfolk

A House in New Norfolk

An interesting house in New Norfolk, Tasmania. Porthole window, curved corner, rounded room on the right and lovely sweeping set of steps to the front door.

Don't you love the map of Tassie on the For Sale sign.

Derwent Valley Council Chambers, New Norfolk

The Derwent Valley Council Chambers in New Norfolk, near Hobart, date from 1935. The year is, unusually, on the side of the building but more about that later.

The decoration is minimal but illustrates the rule of three deco principle perfectly.

There are three sections to the building, three steps in the roof line and three steps in the central tower. Three windows on each floor either side of the tower, three flag poles and even three decorative elements above the door with the central one a stepped pyramid shape with, well, three levels.

I mentioned the date on the side of the chambers. You can see it at the left of this picture of the War Memorial Hall, an interesting building in its own right.

A series of headlines in the Hobart Mercury newspaper between 1949 and 1954 show that raising funds and getting approval to build the hall was a drawn out process.

The result though, I think, is a handsome modernist building.

But back to that 1935 year marker. I find it a strange place to put such a marker but there must have been a reason.

Haeremai, New Norfolk

With a name such as Haeremai in a place called New Norfolk you are excused for jumping to the conclusion that this modernist house is in New Zealand.

It is, of course, in Tasmania. New Norfolk being in the Derwent Valley, not that far from Hobart. Perhaps a displaced Kiwi has named their house using a variation of the Maori word for Welcome, or it fits the genre of popular housenames such as Ruo Emoh.