Museum
Level 1 at Hive
10am – 4pm daily
CURRENT EXHIBITION
Red Soil and Deep Clay: what comes from the abundant earth
September 2025 – August 2027
The vibrant red soils of Tasmania formed out of volcanic basalt that weathered and crumbled over millions of years. Trees, plants, and animals grew and returned their nutrients and remains back into the soil, creating fertility and plenty.
Minerals eroded out of rocks and reacted with water, forming clay. Dense deep layers of clay waited quietly in the earth. Since the first peoples arrived at least 41 000 years ago, the growing and gathering of food, the extraction of materials and minerals, and the building of our community has come from this red soil and dense deep clay.
Red Soil and Deep Clay tells the stories of industry and creation from the minerals extracted, and what grows in — and is returned — to the earth, here in the Central Coast.
This exhibition will evolve over the next two years, with new stories introduced each season.
Featured Story
A Soldier Settlement
The Castra Scheme
Soldier settlements were small townships or land grants set aside for retiring or returning soldiers. It was a popular movement after the First and Second World Wars in Australia but had been trialled and promoted in the nineteenth century too. The Castra Scheme was an Anglo-Indian soldier settlement scheme led by Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Crawford in the late 1860s. British soldiers and their families who had served in the colonised state of India were referred to as Anglo-Indian.
Crawford had visited Tasmania in the early 1860s where his sister and her family had settled near Richmond in the State’s south. He toured the Central Coast with James Fenton to locate the perfect place for the soldier settlement. After the gazettal of 50 000 acres of the Castra area by the Tasmanian Parliament in 1867 for this purpose, Crawford promoted the scheme far and wide throughout the Anglo-Indian forces for years as the perfect retirement. Crawford led the way with his sons constructing a bark hut in 1873, and later a house, on ‘Deyrah’. Deyrah is a borrowed Hindi word from Crawford’s time in India. Only 52 Anglo-Indian officers and their families took up the option to purchase 11 000 acres of the land that was set aside, and moved to Tasmania.
The settlement did not have an easy time. The roads were poorly constructed and a promised tramway did not materialise. Many of the officers who took up the land were expecting these facilities to be put in place but the government did not deliver. This did not stop them from moving to the area or developing properties, as many of them were still on their land two decades later. Properties did end up changing hands to non-Anglo-Indian families over time.
The lasting impact of the Castra Scheme was the immigration of this wave of Anglo-Indians along with their families and Indian servants to the Central Coast. They bought land elsewhere along the North West Coast and became leaders and politicians in the community. Several of these officers built businesses and homes, some of which are now recognised as important heritage places.
