Celebrating Port Willunga
Published on 23 October 2025
An event to celebrate Port Willunga’s 175th anniversary was held at the Star of Greece restaurant last Sunday 19 October, with South Australia’s Governor, Frances Adamson, unveiling a plaque to mark the occasion.
It’s a milestone English farmer Thomas Martin could hardly have imagined when he was laying the township’s foundations 175 years ago.
The small township came to be in October 1850 when Thomas – who’d emigrated to SA from Devonshire, England in 1840 with wife, Mary – subdivided part of the family farm they’d established in 1848.
The township’s rich history – and that of its port, which dates back to 1841 – has also been celebrated with the installation of 5 interpretive historical signs, detailing the fascinating people and places of those early days.
The signs were prompted by a deputation at a Council meeting last year from Richard Forbes, representing the Port Willunga Heritage Sub-Committee of the National Trust of South Australia (Willunga branch).
Council approved the project and worked closely with Richard and the sub-committee to develop the signs before seeking community feedback.
“The 175th anniversary project is important from two perspectives, Richard said.
“Firstly, it is an opportunity to recognise the early pioneer settlers of Port Willunga from the 1840s, and 3 of their descendants attended the celebration.
“Secondly, we reflected on the remarkable contribution the port made to helping towns, communities and businesspeople prosper across the Fleurieu Peninsula in the early days of settlement.
“This initiative is the first time Port Willunga’s history has been told in this level of detail. The committee could not have achieved its objectives without the amazing support of council and its staff.”
The project acknowledges and celebrates the establishment of this important trading port in South Australia, and, through a soon to be published book on the history of Port Willunga, also acknowledges the area’s indigenous history prior to European settlement.
In Port Willunga, Aboriginal culture and ongoing connection to Country will be celebrated in the Port Willunga North Coast Park (Coastal Trail) project, in which various cultural elements are being developed based on direct, ongoing engagement with Kaurna Meyunna Traditional Owners.
Head to the council’s Your Say page to learn more about the Port Willunga historical signage project and sign locations, or read on to learn more about some of the key people and places in Port Willunga’s story.
An historically significant port
In 1841, just 5 years after South Australia became a colony, the schooner ‘John Pirie’ was the first vessel to enter Port Willunga – one of SA’s earliest ports – to load materials.
Slate roofing tiles from the Willunga quarries were transported by bullocks (cattle) pulling wagons onto the beach and into the shallows.
The loads were then transferred to flat bottomed boats known as ‘lighters’ and ferried to tall-masted ships waiting offshore. This method was used before the first jetty was built.
At its peak in the 1850s and 60s, it was SA’s busiest regional port, shipping slate roofing tiles, wheat, flour and assorted produce to other colonies and overseas.
The port fuelled growth across the Fleurieu Peninsula, with goods transported by bullocks, horses, and drays from towns including Willunga, McLaren Vale, Aldinga, Mount Barker, Meadows, Yankalilla, Finniss and Bulls Creek.
A township is born
Thomas and Mary Martin’s farm, was one of the first European settlements in the area, with some of the earliest buildings in the region.
The farm included at least 2 houses, numerous stone and timber outbuildings, and 80 acres of land dedicated to wheat and barley production and dairy cows.
The farm was named ‘Dulil’ by the Martins from one of the local Indigenous languages, however people came to know it as Martin’s Farm.
In October 1850, Thomas subdivided part of his farm on the northern side of the creek to create the private township of Port Willunga.
In the early 1850s, the Martin’s also built a magnificent, 2-storey stone and slate farm homestead with unique proximity to the beach. One of the interpretive signs is located on this site.
Based on the number of sailors from visiting ships and Thomas’ experience as a hotelier in England, the family realised the homestead would make an excellent hotel and extended the house to a sizable 15 rooms.
Its licensed name was the Pier Hotel, but it was known as ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ to the locals. It was the first hotel in Port Willunga and operated from 1853 until Thomas’ death in 1862.
Thomas literally laid the foundations of the township and his family’s presence shaped Port Willunga’s social landscape in its formative decades. The Martins lived at the heart of Port Willunga for more than a century, working the land and prospering.
The Star of Greece ship sank within view of their farm and the Martin family later endured their own personal tragedy in the sea, when Thomas Martin Jnr’s daughter Mary (Cissie) Martin and her friend Maud Saunders drowned on 30 December 1899.
A fire in the 1960s destroyed the homestead. The Martin family farmed the area for 120 years until the 1970s.
Thomas and Mary Martin are buried at the Saint Stephen’s Anglican Cemetery in Willunga.
Martin’s family cottage and barn
Interpretive signs have been installed alongside the remains of other buildings of Martin’s Farm.
The second dwelling on the Martin property was a cottage built between the 1870s and 1880s to house Thomas Martin Jnr, his wife Mary (nee Hancock) and their 8 children.
The cottage had 4 main rooms and was built of local stone with a slate roof and floors.
At the back of the house stood an outhouse and a combined dairy and cellar to store cold foods.
As the harbour master between 1883 and 1885, Thomas Martin Jnr had a separate office at the rear of the house, made from beach pebbles.
Muriel Polkinghorne was the last person to live in the cottage, moving into it when the main Martin homestead and former Pier Hotel became too dilapidated.
The City of Onkaparinga has undertaken works to what remains of the cottage, to improve its safety and integrity.
Thomas Martin Thomas Martin Jnr became a multi-skilled farmer and is considered to be responsible for the surviving fine stonework of the limestone rubble barn, built around 1895.
Records show that Thomas bought the 16.5 hectares at this eastern end of Martin’s Farm from the South Australian Company of London in 1899.
The slate-roofed, dirt-floored barn brought the farm’s produce and supply chains closer to transport.
The Port Willunga Jetty trade dropped off early in the 20th century. With his conveniently located barn, Thomas could more efficiently dispatch his wheat, barley and dairy goods via main roads, and from 1915, the Willunga railway.
The Martin’s fed hay from the barn to their cows to produce ‘Dulil’ butter as it was known. In the 1940s Thomas Martin’s son, Stan, leased the barn end of Martin’s Farm to the How family, local potato farmers and fishmongers.
Life on Martin’s Farm was truly a shared experience.
SA’s second mainland jetty
At the bottom of the ramp onto the beach, at the northern end, Port Willunga’s first jetty began operating in 1853. It was just the second mainland jetty in South Australia, and provided a faster route to market than the slow, dusty tracks to Adelaide.
Initially poorly built, it required two extensions before ships could safely load cargo. By 1865, storms had destroyed the jetty and a second one was built in 1868 at the southern end of the bay.
Like the first jetty it played a major role in helping many local towns and communities, to prosper.
The jetty was used to transport tens of thousands of tonnes of slate, flour, wheat and other produce across the Fleurieu Peninsula for more than 40 years.
Originally constructed of red gum, the second jetty was 152 metres long and around 2.4 metres tall at the high-water mark.
The ramp to the jetty was made by blasting through the cliff. The total cost of construction was £5,500.
A train track ran along the jetty to its end where a crane loaded goods onto a variety of ships, both large and small.
In 1871, the jetty was placed under the care and management of the Aldinga District Council.
In winter, Port Willunga is prone to high seas, severe winds and strong currents. The jetty was battered by storms in the late 1890s and early 1900s. A storm in 1915 irreparably damaged the jetty and it could no longer be used to transport goods. The few pylons visible today are all that remain.