Gunning & District Historical Society

Gunning to Newnes and Beyond: Roy Irwin Alchin by Garry Smith Roy Irwin Alchin with Grandson Garry Norman Smith 1949 Roy Irwin Alchin (1897-1976) was born in Gunning on 23 January 1897, the son of Edward Alchin (1863-1941) and Elizabeth Ann Alchin (nee Bailey) (1872-1964). Roy’s great grandfather, Ambrose Alchin, had come to the Gunning district in the late 1840s with his family - wife Ann and their children. The British Parliament approved the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act in 1901. In that same year Roy was a four-year-old boy playing around the family home near the common in Gunning. Little is known about Roy’s childhood but it is known that in the year of Federation, Roy made the newspaper when he badly fractured his leg while running around the house. “ Goulburn Evening Penny Post”, Saturday 16 March 1901, 7 (via TROVE) Roy grew up in a strictly Methodist household; at the age of ten years Roy and his sister Myra took par...

The Rosy Hyacinth Orchid  (Dipodium roseum), long lost to view, will be flowering in Lade Vale and other places around the district over the next few weeks. If You Go Down in the Woods Today   Provided you are in the right place, you could be in for a big surprise during the next few months. You may be lucky enough to see a noteworthy and unusual native orchid flaunting its very showy  flowers. Most orchid species we see locally tend to be short, modest and unobtrusive with their full beauty not being apparent unless they are very closely examined through a magnifying glass. Not so the Hyacinth Orchid, the largest terrestrial orchid in our district, which displays its bright pink petals to the world on long purple stems up to 3/4 of a metre high. This stunning wonder has emerged on two Lade Vale properties for the last three years in a row.   Neither of the current property owners had seen it over the preceding twenty years or so. One of the pro...