Last updated 4Jul19

Potters Chimney

Potters Chimney is located beside Back or Grassy Creek south of the Mt Clear camp ground in the Namadgi National Park.

Location: GR 55H FA 81456-28033 (MGA94), Bredbo 8726-3S 1:25000. The slate site by Back or Grassy Creek is at GR 55H FA 81470-27985 (MGA94), Bredbo 8726-3S 1:25000.


Potters Chimney, July 2009

Visits: 18 Aug 15, 15 Aug 15, 30 Jul 13, 25 Jul 09, 13 Mar 07, 8 May 05

Photographs are available.

Documentation:

• KHA Namadgi database (private source). Site 266. Also known as Grassy Creek, marked by a partly intact shale chimney with distinctive warming alcoves, the only such chimney in Namadgi.  Stonemason Charles Potter erected the hut sometime before 1879, when the hut was valued at 80 pounds.  Later acquired ….

• Gudgenby: A register of archaeological sites in the proposed Gudgenby National Park, J H Winston-Gregson MA thesis, ANU, 1978. Site BR13. Chimney of shale with mud mortar; six postholes and shale outline; roof shingles. Hut valued at £80 in 1879 and labelled as “residence”. See extracts of the relevant pages in the photos above.

• Sites of Significance in the ACT. A 9 volume set, pre-cursor to the ACT Heritage Register. Published in 1988 (Vols 1-7), 1989 (Vol 8) and 1990 (Vol 9); pp38-43. Site G42. The most visible remnant of a hut site on a terrace about 50 metres north of Grassy Creek is a stone hearth/chimney complex. It is made of regularly sized slabs of dark slate fixed with mud mortar. The slate slabs are from 25 mm to 75 mm thick and generally a single piece extends to the full wall thickness of 400 mm. The slate has good cleavage giving a regular although slightly rippled surface. An unusual feature of the chimney is a square recess set into the chimney wall, probably as a dough rising or warming box. The slate was quarried from the nearby bank of Grassy Creek where there are outcrops of vertically dipping slate with good cleavage. Most of the stone used in homesteads and huts in the Namadgi region is ‘granitic’ rock which breaks irregularly or in large blocks and requires more effort to produce even-sized blocks and slabs than does slate. The hut was built by Charles Potter, a selector at Bobeyan, who was a skilled stonemason who worked on a church building at Queanbeyan and ‘Yarrawa’ Homestead on the Murrumbidgee River (G. Scully [Kosciusko Huts Association], pers. comm). The opportunity to use readily cleavable slate was limited and this is an important example of the use of this materail. The chimney differs from any other in the Namadgi National Park in design, materials and construction skill. See extracts of the relevant pages in the photos above.