ECCLESTONE ROAD, RIVERSIDE

ECCLESTONE ROAD, RIVERSIDE

Ecclestone Road at Riverside is one of the older (and longer) roads in the Launceston area. Although it still has some challenges, the road has improved in recent years with the advent of Tasmania Zoo and residential development no doubt encouraging progress.

It has been suggested that the name of the road may have come “from Ecclestone House or vice versa, but it seems more likely to have simply been named for the place to which it led.

Ecclestone was a parish within the Dorset county of Tasmania, probably named for a parish of the same name in Lancaster, England. Governor Arthur officially proclaimed the named counties of Tasmania in 1836, but not the northern parishes. I did, however find reference to Ecclestone Parish as being within the Launceston Police District in January 1838.

William Henry Wells in his Geographic Dictionary of 1848 describes Ecclestone as”a parish of Tasmania situated in the hundred of Stanley and county of Devon; it is bounded on the N by the parish of Stanley, W by the parish of Bridgenorth, S by the river Meander and E by the S Esk river.” You can find a historic map showing its location and even the early land grants on the LIST site.

When the Launceston area was affected by floods in January 1917, the road to the west was cut at Hadspen and the nearest detour to get to anywhere further on, such as Westbury was via Ecclestone Road.  This unusually busy traffic attracted attention to the disrepair into which the road had fallen.  A correspondent to the Examiner at the time wrote: “Surely the Tourist Bureau people are not aware that one of the finest bush drives handy to Launceston is so close to them, and with a few patches here and there it would be well patronised as it is a very healthy and varied drive to Westwood this way.”

Its worth noting that Ecclestone sometimes appears without the 'e” at the end.