Capital Hill is a neighborhood in the Australian capital of Canberra with no permanent population. Originally called Kurrajong Hill, the hill forms the southern tip of the representative Parliamentary Triangle and is surrounded by a circular road. In 1912 Walter Burley Griffin chose this position as the center of the future government district.
The parliament building was originally to be built a little further down towards Lake Burley Griffin on Camp Hill, between Capital Hill and the provisional parliament building . Griffin resisted the plan to build a temporary structure at the foot of Camp Hill, because if a permanent building was to be built on the hilltop it would have to be demolished. In fact, the plans presented by William Holford in 1958 and 1964 called for a new building on the lakeshore for precisely this reason. When the makeshift parliament building had become too small, the Australian parliament decided in 1974 to follow Griffin's original intention and build the new building on the bushy Capital Hill. To this end, it passed a law, the Parliament Act 1974. Construction began in 1981 and Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the building for seven years . The construction of the new Parliament House required the removal of the top half of the hill. After the shell was finished, it was covered again with the previously removed earth.
Street names
The streets starting from Capital Hill are named after the capitals of the Australian states and run roughly in the direction in which these cities are located. These are Brisbane Avenue, Sydney Avenue, Canberra Avenue, Hobart Avenue, Melbourne Avenue, Adelaide Avenue, Perth Avenue, and Darwin Avenue. The streets surrounding the hill in concentric circles are named after the spheres of influence: Capital Circle, State Circle, National Circle, Dominion Circle and Empire Circle (capital, state, nation, Dominion and British Empire ). When Griffin drafted his plan for the new capital, there were reasonable hopes that New Zealand might join the Australian Confederation. He therefore named one of the arterial roads beginning at Capital Hill Wellington Avenue. However, as New Zealand definitely refused to join, the street name was changed to Canberra Avenue.
geology
The geology of Capital Hill has been very studied in detail. The Canberra Formation, made up of calcareous shale , is found in the southwest and northeast. It overlies the Camp Hill sandstone from the middle Silurian era. The sandstone is discordant above the Black Mountain sandstone of the early Silurian and the slate at State Circle. The latter is Llandovery , which was dated 445.7 million years ago and is made up of laminated schist and siltstone . The Black Mountain sandstone consists of a white quartz sandstone . The Deakin Fault cuts the southwest of the State Circle.
↑ GAM Henderson, G. Matveev: Geology of Canberra, Queanbeyan and Environs 1: 50000 . Ed .: Australian Govt. Pub. Service for the Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology, and Geophysics. Canberra 1981.
