Churchills Hut
Photograph courtesy of Ian Hays, MHPS.
STATUS - This hut was destroyed by fire in 30 January 2019.
Located in Florentine Valley near to (Mount) Tim Shea. It is in the Florentine Regional Reserve, 10m south of the Adamsfield Track near to an old Osmiridium Post and 100 m west of Churchills Creek. (This is not the location of the original Churchills Hut, built in 1925 on the northern side of the Adamsfield Track about 1 km away.)
History
The hut was built by Elias Churchill who was a tiger trapper and osmiridium miner from Tyenna in the Derwent Valley.
This hut was reputedly famous as the last place a Tasmania Tiger (Thylacine) was ever captured. As a result it was listed on the THR (Tasmanian Heritage Register). This has been disputed with evidence, (a 1945 aerial photo of he area and a 1957 photo showing a cleared area in a differnt place) suggesting that a previous hut built by the same person, existed on the other side of the river and was in fact the one where the Thylacine was caught.
Tourism Tasmania had provided a grant of $20,000 to preserve this hut in 2007.
Construction
This was a single room hut built on a bush-pole frame and was originally managed by Forestry Tasmania until passed to PWS in 2013. It is now within the Florentine Regional Reserve.
References
The Examiner April 19, 2019.
Tourism Tasmania
Dr Nic Haygarth, ”On the ossie: Tasmanian osmiridium and the fountain pen industry”