Glen Osmond is a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia in the City of Burnside which is in the foothills of the Adelaide Hills. It is well known for the road intersection on the western side of the suburb, where the South Eastern Freeway (National Route M1) from the Adelaide Hills and the main route from Melbourne splits into National Route A17 Portrush Road (north, the main route towards Port Adelaide), Glen Osmond Road (running northwest towards Adelaide city centre) and state route A3 Cross Road west towards the coast and southern suburbs.
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History
In 1841, silver and lead were found at Glen Osmond, leading to the establishment of the Wheal Gawler and Wheal Watkins mines. The mines operated in the 1840s, and again in the 1890s.
The Big Tree
A significant feature of the four-way intersection at Glen Osmond (Glen Osmond Road, Cross Road, Mount Barker Road (later South Eastern Freeway), and Portrush Road) was a eucalypt known as "The Big Tree", whose associations with the history of Adelaide were "greater than any other", since surveyors pegged the boundaries of Section 270 in the year 1837. At one time the Mitcham Council had designs on the tree, which impeded the flow of traffic to Glenelg, but it was saved from the woodman's axe by Arthur Hardy of Birksgate. Tom Gill, in his history of the district, predicted it would be named "Hardy's Tree" in recognition of his philanthropy.
Notable people
Cedric Stanton Hicks, founder of the Australian Army Catering Corps, died here in 1976
Nancy Cato (1917–2000), writer and activist, born and raised in Glen Osmond.