There’s a rumour that one of South Australia’s richest and most flamboyant colonial families, the Duttons, once carted seawater all the way from the coast to the mid-north. Not for drinking. Not for plants. But for their pet seagulls.
Welcome to Anlaby Station, circa 1839.
This isn’t your average country homestead. Think orchid conservatories, mushroom houses, a flower arranging room, a folly tower for piano recitals with afternoon tea, and a privately owned steamship kept at the ready to collect exotic plants from Japan and for shopping in London.
At its peak, the family ran 70,000 sheep across 160,000 acres. But livestock was never the headline. Lifestyle was.
Anlaby was the playground of the Dutton family.
Frederick Hansborough Dutton left Sydney in the 1830s with more than 150,000 merino sheep, arriving six months later, just as the price of wool had dropped significantly. But his luck changed when he discovered rich copper deposits on his newly acquired property near Kapunda.
Frederick was chasing opportunity and quickly built a fortune from wool and copper. Yet he wasn’t content with success alone. He built an estate to rival the grand country houses of England, importing plants, craftsmen, and ideas from across the world.
His nephew Henry inherited both the property and the taste for extravagance. Under Henry, the gardens grew even more ambitious, and the conservatory became the largest in the southern hemisphere.
For more than a century, the family threw lavish garden parties with orchestras. Their dinner parties featured menus printed on luxurious fabric and dishes as peculiar as lark’s tongue.
They built their own private train platform and entertained bishops and barons in the middle of the South Australian bush. It was rural life… but on a scale more Gatsby than grazier.
They filled rooms with rare roses, imported cuttings from overseas, and hired staff solely to manage floral displays.
One Dutton heiress even practised piano in the folly tower, surrounded by water tanks, claiming the acoustics were perfect.
Now, for the first time in decades, the property is up for sale. But before it changes hands, the gates are swinging open for the annual spring festival, which could be a final glimpse into the extravagant empire once known as South Australia’s most opulent sheep station.
In its golden age, Anlaby was a bush Versailles with a beautiful twist—a theatre of the absurd disguised as the largest Merino sheep station in Australia.
The Duttons had taste, money, and an insatiable flair for the theatrical.
They hosted Edwardian soirées beneath blooming camellias. Their pets were buried in a crypt within a private cemetery, each with a headstone and engraved tribute.
They built their own private train platform, where the elite would arrive in style for black-tie affairs held deep in the South Australian bush.
It’s said that even the produce had a performance schedule. Cucumber houses were built with heated beds so guests could enjoy perfectly ripe fruit—and dainty cucumber sandwiches—all year round.
Mushrooms were cultivated in cool, shadowy rooms. Shade houses protected delicate ferns and orchids imported from around the world. And the floristry room saw daily action just to keep the estate’s lavish interiors filled with fresh blooms.
Fast-forward a century or so, and Anlaby had faded into near-ruin. Roofs had collapsed. The gardens grew unruly. The tower fell silent.
That is, until Andrew Morphett and Peter Hayward stumbled across a vintage photo of the conservatory and felt the kind of irrational pull that leads to life-changing projects.
“It was falling apart,” says Andrew. “But there was a magic to it. A madness. We couldn’t look away.”
That madness turned into a 21-year labour of love. Weekends were swallowed by flights from Sydney, long drives to Kapunda, and months of sourcing trades, tiles, and materials to match the originals.
Wallpaper came from a firm in London that’s been around since the 1800s. The grotto was rebuilt stone by stone. The Squatter’s Dream rose, once thought lost to time, was revived and replanted.
And that piano tower? Still standing. Still musical.
Today, Anlaby flourishes again. The restored folly tower watches over formal garden rooms, each framed by heritage hedges and blooming with more than 6,000 new plantings this season alone.
A working grotto bubbles with running water. The rebuilt cucumber house glows softly in the spring sun.
Inside the manor, you’ll find ten bedrooms, secret staircases, oil paintings, a remarkable wine cellar, vintage wallpapers, and the lingering perfume of ambition. Anlaby isn’t just restored—it’s revived. And it’s still gloriously eccentric.
Each year, Andrew Morphett and Peter Hayward open the gates for the Anlaby Spring Festival, giving visitors a glimpse of the estate at its most dazzling. This year, on 18 and 19 October, the gardens will be more colourful than ever.
More than 6,000 new plants have been added, filling the ten acres with vibrant texture and scent.
“It’s the most colour we’ve ever had,” says Andrew. “The whole place just feels alive.”
Guests can wander through formal garden rooms, pause at the folly tower, or sip a glass of bubbles or a G&T on the lawns. Live music will drift through the hedges, while market stalls spill over with local produce, plants, and handcrafted treasures.
Families can follow a children’s garden trail designed like a storybook, while friends settle in for Devonshire Tea or a country lunch, pre-booked in advance. The festival feels like an invitation to slow down and escape into a living, breathing piece of South Australian history.
“You’ll feel the spirit of a place that was never ordinary. And you never know—you might even see a long-lost seagull,” says Andrew.
Anlaby Station is still standing. Still lavish. Still delightfully excessive.
When: 18 and 19 October.
Tickets: Day Pass tickets online are $20 for adults and Kids under the age of 16 are free. (At the gate $25 for adults). Two-day passes available for $30.00.
For more information, click here.
For real estate information, click here.
More News
