Fort Glanville Conservation Park

Open days and re-enactments

The fort is open from 1:00 pm to 4:30 pm on the third Sun­day of every month between Sep­tem­ber and May. Group tours avail­able any­time by arrangement. 

Guid­ed tours and his­tor­i­cal re-enact­ments oper­ate dur­ing these times.

Entry fees include a guid­ed tour and re-enactment:

• Adult — $15.00
• Child (under 14) — $7.00
• Con­ces­sion — $7.00
• Fam­i­ly — $35.00

Tours

The fort is open for tours every Tues­day from 9:00 am to 11:00 am.

Walk-ins are wel­come, how­ev­er book­ings are nec­es­sary on Tues­days for groups of more than 10 people.

Tours can be organ­ised out­side of these times by nego­ti­a­tion, for groups of 10 or more.

Stan­dard tour — $10.00 per person

Vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion, book­ings and park management:

Black Hill Nation­al Park and Wildlife Ser­vice Office
Phone: (+61) 7133 7300
Email: DEW.​NPWSNorthLofty@​sa.​gov.​au

Fort Glanville His­tor­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion Inc.
Group book­ings and gen­er­al enquiries
Phone: (+61 8) 8264 4798
Email: russell.​sheldrick@​bigpond.​com
Fort Glanville His­tor­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion website

Emer­gency contacts:

Med­ical, fire (includ­ing bush­fire) and police emer­gency sit­u­a­tions
Phone: Triple Zero (000)

Police Assis­tance
Phone: 131 444 for non-urgent police assistance

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice SA – Emer­gency After Hours Duty Offi­cer (voice mes­sages only, text mes­sages are unavail­able to be received)
Phone: 0427 556 676 

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact the Black Hill Nation­al Park and Wildlife Ser­vice Office on (+61) 7133 7300 or the duty offi­cer on 0427 556 676. 

Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group for assis­tance of ani­mals out­side of the park. 

Marine mam­mals
If you find a sick or strand­ed marine mam­mal (includ­ing whales, seals, sea lions and dol­phins), please con­tact Black Hill Nation­al Park and Wildlife Ser­vice Office on (+61) 7133 7300 or the duty offi­cer on 0427 556 676

Fort Glanville Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed at 359 Mil­i­tary Rd, Sem­a­phore Park, 12km north west of Ade­laide. Access is via Mil­i­tary Road.

If you’re in your own vehi­cle, you can find this park on the map.

• Park map

There is also pub­lic trans­port to this park from the Ade­laide city centre. 

• Ade­laide Metro bus and train services

Dogs are not per­mit­ted in this park.

Dis­cov­er which parks you can walk your dog in on our find a park tool or read 12 dog-friend­ly walks in Ade­laide Parks by Good Liv­ing for inspiration.

Assis­tance dogs are per­mit­ted in most pub­lic places and are there­fore wel­come in South Australia’s parks and reserves. Assis­tance dogs must be appro­pri­ate­ly restrained on a lead and remain under your effec­tive con­trol at all times while in a park or reserve.

As per the dogs in parks and reserves pol­i­cy, if the dog is not an accred­it­ed assis­tance dog, they must be trained to assist a per­son with a dis­abil­i­ty to alle­vi­ate that dis­abil­i­ty and meet stan­dards of hygiene and behav­iour appro­pri­ate for a dog in a pub­lic place. How­ev­er, refusal may be giv­en if the per­son with the dis­abil­i­ty is unable to pro­duce evi­dence the dog is an assis­tance dog with the appro­pri­ate training.

Before tak­ing your assis­tance dog into a park that does not nor­mal­ly allow dogs, it is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed that you con­tact us so we can pro­vide you with the lat­est infor­ma­tion on any poten­tial haz­ards with­in spe­cif­ic parks that may affect your dog. Please con­tact the park via the con­tact details pro­vid­ed under the con­tact tab or con­tact the vis­i­tor ser­vice cen­tre via email.

The fort can be hired for a vari­ety of uses. Please con­tact Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice to dis­cuss your event. 

Phone: (+61 8) (+61) 7133 7300

There are toi­lets, pub­lic trans­port and guid­ed tours avail­able with­in the park.

• Read about the fam­i­ly fun that awaits you at Fort Glanville on the Good Liv­ing blog. 
• Mobile phone cov­er­age is good in most areas of the park.
• Parks man­age­ment plans
• Trails SA
• SA Marine Parks
• Impor­tant: Col­lec­tion of fire­wood with­in Nation­al Parks is pro­hib­it­ed. Dead wood plays a vital role in pro­vid­ing shel­ter for ani­mals and adding nutri­ents to the soil.

Flo­ra and fau­na species lists

To down­load flo­ra (plants) and fau­na (ani­mals) species lists for this park, use the ​‘Cre­ate Sim­ple Species List’ tab under ​‘Flo­ra Tools’ or ​‘Fau­na Tools’ in NatureMaps.

Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples have occu­pied, enjoyed and man­aged the lands and waters of this State for thou­sands of gen­er­a­tions. For Abo­rig­i­nal first nations, cre­ation ances­tors laid down the laws of the Coun­try and bestowed a range of cus­tom­ary rights and oblig­a­tions to the many Abo­rig­i­nal Nations across our state. 

There are many places across the State that have great spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance to Abo­rig­i­nal first nations. At some of these places Abo­rig­i­nal cul­tur­al pro­to­cols, such as restrict­ed access, are pro­mot­ed and vis­i­tors are asked to respect the wish­es of Tra­di­tion­al Owners.

In places where pro­to­cols are not pro­mot­ed vis­i­tors are asked to show respect by not touch­ing or remov­ing any­thing, and make sure you take all your rub­bish with you when you leave.

Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples con­tin­ue to play an active role in car­ing for their Coun­try, includ­ing in parks across South Australia. 

• DEW Park management
• DEW Abo­rig­i­nal partnerships

Fort Glanville stands as a mon­u­ment to Australia’s colo­nial defence strate­gies. In the 1870’s, fear­ing sea-based threats from Rus­sia due to poten­tial con­flict between Britain and Rus­sia, the Aus­tralian colonies planned coastal for­ti­fi­ca­tions to pro­tect major ports and coastal cities.

Three forts were planned for South Aus­tralia: Glanville (opened in 1880), Largs (opened in 1884) and Glenelg. The forts were to be con­nect­ed by a road built behind the coastal dunes for mil­i­tary use — hence the name Mil­i­tary Road. A heav­i­ly armed gun­boat (HMCS Pro­tec­tor), a tor­pe­do sta­tion on Port Riv­er and sig­nalling sta­tions com­plet­ed the plan.

Fort Glenelg was nev­er built and with­in twen­ty years Fort Largs was upgrad­ed, result­ing in Fort Glanville becom­ing less impor­tant. Fol­low­ing Fed­er­a­tion, Fort Glanville ceased to be oper­a­tional. Since that time, Fort Glanville has served as a mil­i­tary deten­tion cen­tre, depres­sion era accom­mo­da­tion, Boy Scout head­quar­ters and, fol­low­ing its sale to the gov­ern­ment, a car­a­van park. In the 1970s, its impor­tant her­itage val­ue was recog­nised. Once the car­a­van park was relo­cat­ed, restora­tion work began and con­tin­ues today.

Fort Glanville was con­struct­ed dur­ing the peri­od 1878 – 80. It is a ​‘luntte’ or cres­cent-shaped earth­work, rein­forced by 160 cm of con­crete and 60 cm brick retain­ing walls, afford­ing both cam­ou­flage and pro­tec­tion. The front and sides of the fort were defend­ed by a ditch, which was itself defend­ed by a caponier (mus­ketry gallery) at the north-east cor­ner. The rear and south­ern walls were defend­ed by the loop­holed rear defence wall, bar­racks and stockade.

Expense Stores

Ammu­ni­tion for the 64 pounder guns was locat­ed in the expense store near each gun. Bat­tery Two 10-inch guns pro­vid­ed the fort with for­mi­da­ble fire pow­er, hav­ing a max­i­mum of 6500 yards (6014 metres). The small­er 64 pounder guns, locat­ed on each flank, could engage tar­gets 5000 yards (4550 metres) away, and sup­port­ed the larg­er guns. By 1889 how­ev­er, the bat­tery was super­seded by the more mod­ern breech-load­ing artillery installed at Fort Largs. The south­ern 10-inch gun car­riage has been re-created.

Load­ing Gallery

With their large car­riages, the 10-inch guns were able to swiv­el, mak­ing it pos­si­ble to load them in two min­utes under the pro­tec­tion of the load­ing gallery. Ammu­ni­tion in the form of 400 lb (182 kg) pro­jec­tiles and 130 lb (60 kg) charges of gun­pow­der were raised to the load­ing gallery above the mag­a­zine by hoists. From here they were rammed by a mechan­i­cal load­ing sys­tem into the muz­zles. The com­plete load­ing sys­tem has been re-cre­at­ed for the south­ern gun.

Mag­a­zine

The mag­a­zine pro­vid­ed stor­age for gun­pow­der and shells for the 10-inch guns.

The Caponier

The caponier served as an impor­tant defen­sive fea­ture. Its cov­ered pas­sage gave access to the sup­ple­men­tary gun­pow­der stores and the side-arm and tack­le store.

The Gar­ri­son

Between 1880 and 1882, the fort was staffed on week­ends on a tem­po­rary basis by the South Aus­tralian Vol­un­teer Artillery ​‘B’ bat­tery. In 1882, the South Aus­tralian Per­ma­nent Artillery became the colony’s first home recruit­ed ​‘reg­u­lar’ force. With Fort Glanville as their base, their prime pur­pose was to defend the colony. Offi­cers’ quar­ters were sep­a­rat­ed from the enlist­ed men in the bar­racks, as were their mess facil­i­ties. Accom­mo­da­tion was lim­it­ed, and tents for vol­un­teers were pitched out­side the fort for week­end train­ing camps.