A community archive of Canberra & its neighboursPhotographs · Places · People
Lost. Canberra
Some places change.
The stories stay.

The places. The people. The stories.

The archive.

A growing collection from Canberra and its neighbours. Every history links back to its sources.

Browse by district or town ↗

36 entries

1908

Bungendore

Twelve tons of rabbits

A station photograph with a rather unexpected cargo.

1959

Cooma

The people behind the flags

The Snowy Scheme, remembered one flag at a time.

1870s

Braidwood

The railway that never came

A Station Street. A Railway Hotel. But no trains.

1860s

Collector

A pub, a bootmaker & a bushranger

The building behind a familiar roadside name.

1887

Queanbeyan

A station built to last

Why Queanbeyan got a little more than a platform.

Braddon and Civic Centre from Mt Ainslie, Black Mountain at the rear.

Inner North

Can you see the city yet?

Braddon and Civic, when the streets were easier to see than the buildings.

J B Youngs store at Kingston with motor vehicles

Inner South

A little shopping in Kingston

Cars at the kerb and the name J. B. Young’s above the shop.

Steamroller spraying tar in Mort Street, Canberra City.

Inner North

The making of Mort Street

A steamroller, a road crew, and a street taking shape.

Intersection of Monaro and Crawford Streets, Queanbeyan.

Queanbeyan · photo comparison

Meet you on the corner

Monaro and Crawford Streets, in the days of these motor cars.

View from Mt Ainslie down Anzac Parade.

Inner North · photo comparison

The view, and the years between

Mount Ainslie, 1921–1935 and Anzac Day 2011: two real photographs of a changing city.

Aerial view of Lake Burley Griffin

Canberra

The lake, before the trees filled in

A familiar sweep of water, with a much younger landscape around it.

Canberra Mercedes-Benz buses under construction, Mulgrave, Melbourne

Canberra

Before the first passenger

Canberra’s city buses, still taking shape on a Melbourne factory floor.

Monaro Mall, Canberra

Inner North

Meet you at Monaro Mall

Escalators, shopping bags and a prime minister who could barely hear the speeches.

Hotel Ainslie on Limestone Avenue

Inner North

Hotel Ainslie, before the city filled in

A substantial hotel, a road at its door, and room to see right across to the hills.

Open pasture and scattered trees across Woden Valley, photographed from Red Hill before suburban development.

Woden Valley · area history

Woden Valley: A new town with traces of the farms beneath

Soldier-settler properties, experimental housing and a planned town centre share the Woden landscape.

Concrete tanks, timber formwork, valves and equipment at the Weston Creek sewerage treatment works under construction.

Weston Creek · area history

Weston Creek: Farm trees, neighbourhoods and the work of recovery

Old homestead sites and the nearby bushfire memorial preserve stories beneath and around Weston Creek's suburbs.

1870s–2000s

Belconnen · area history

Belconnen: A new town around an older landscape

Lake Ginninderra anchors a planned town whose school sites and naval history reach well beyond the suburbs.

1880–1987

Tuggeranong · area history

Tuggeranong: An older valley, a new town and a rainy beginning

A schoolhouse, a working homestead and the inauguration of Canberra's southern new town reveal Tuggeranong's layers.

1872–1996

Gungahlin · area history

Gungahlin: Older stories inside a growing northern town

Ochre grounds, village buildings and watercourses reveal the layers beneath Gungahlin's modern development.

1960s–2026

Molonglo Valley · area history

Molonglo Valley: A growing district beside an older river landscape

Molonglo's recent neighbourhoods belong to a longer story of Country, forestry, fire recovery and city planning.

Braddon and Civic Centre from Mt Ainslie, Black Mountain at the rear.

Inner North · area history

Inner North: Garden suburbs and the city's early neighbours

Shelter trees, public-service cottages and a rural church reveal several beginnings in Canberra's inner north.

J B Youngs store at Kingston with motor vehicles

Inner South · area history

Inner South: The capital's working and domestic beginnings

Kingston's power station, Forrest's early housing and Manuka's sporting places connect national construction with daily life.

Continuing Country · layered histories

Rural ACT · area history

Rural ACT: Country, river crossings and the mountain country beyond

An archive route through Birrigai, Tharwa, Tidbinbilla, Namadgi and Mount Stromlo.

1870s

Braidwood · area history

Braidwood: The railway that never came

A Station Street. A Railway Hotel. But no trains.

1908

Bungendore · area history

Bungendore: Twelve tons of rabbits

A station photograph with a rather unexpected cargo.

1860s

Collector · area history

Collector: A pub, a bootmaker & a bushranger

The building behind a familiar roadside name.

1959

Cooma · area history

Cooma: The people behind the flags

The Snowy Scheme, remembered one flag at a time.

Historical postcard showing Auburn Street in Goulburn, with a central street lamp, shop verandas and a distant clock tower.

Goulburn · area history

Goulburn: Wool, railways and the making of an inland city

An established regional centre whose railway buildings and steam waterworks preserve the machinery of nineteenth-century growth.

1840s–2018

Gundaroo · area history

Gundaroo: Two settlements, a reading room and a bridge

Gundaroo's surviving buildings record a village that shifted, grew and kept finding new uses for old places.

Colonial settlement from 1826

Lake Bathurst · area history

Lake Bathurst: A small village beside a much larger landscape

A former railway stop whose school and church buildings preserve traces of nineteenth-century village life near a fluctuating wetland.

Ancient landscape · records from 1820

Lake George · area history

Lake George: A changing lake with a long human history

An Aboriginal cultural landscape and closed lake basin whose water levels preserve an unusually long record of wet and dry years.

1870s–1977

Murrumbateman · area history

Murrumbateman: From a farming village to experimental vineyards

An old school, a community association and the first Clonakilla vines connect Murrumbateman's rural chapters.

Intersection of Monaro and Crawford Streets, Queanbeyan.

Queanbeyan · area history

Queanbeyan: A station built to last

Why Queanbeyan got a little more than a platform.

1820–2017

Sutton · area history

Sutton: A village remembered through its school and families

School photographs, family papers and local memories make Sutton's history tangible.

Railway opened 1884

Tarago · area history

Tarago: A railway village with an industrial afterlife

Tarago's station, goods shed and farming valley connect nineteenth-century transport with the later story of Woodlawn.

A horse beside a fence and flowering garden plants in a rural landscape near Yass, with trees and distant hills.

Yass · area history

Yass: A river town connected by a little railway

Cooma Cottage, the town tramway and a community archive reveal different sides of Yass's history.