Campbell Town
The town’s well-named Red Bridge, designed by convict-engineer James Blackburn, is Australia’s oldest surviving brick arch bridge. It was fashioned from 1.5 million red-clay bricks made on site, and still forms part of one of the state’s major highways.
The convicts who painstakingly built the bridge in 1838 were housed in cellars beneath an adjoining coaching inn, the Foxhunters Return.
A few blocks north is a statue of Eliza Forlong, the pioneering Scotswoman who founded Tasmania’s super-fine merino wool industry after traipsing across the German region of Saxony three times to select sheep to transport to the colony.
Campbell Town was named by Governor Lachlan Macquarie after the family name of his second wife, Elizabeth Campbell, during a visit in 1821. Elizabeth’s name pops up frequently across central Tasmania, including on the Elizabeth River that runs through Campbell Town.
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