Hampton Township Ruins
A vanished English village on the edge of Burra.
Laid out in 1857 and abandoned by 1960, the village of Hampton survives as evocative stone ruins on Burra's outskirts — a National Trust heritage area within the Heritage Passport.
On the outskirts of Burra lie the bones of an entire village. Hampton was laid out in 1857 by Kooringa postmaster Thomas Powell, who named it after his wife's home town in England, and modelled it on an English village; allotments went on sale in 1858, and by 1866 it held more than 30 dwellings and a Bible Christian chapel.
Its fortunes tracked the copper. After the Burra mine closed in 1877 the miners drifted away, and the last residents left by 1960. What remains is a remarkably legible ghost village — fence lines, walls and the stone shells of cottages tracing the original street plan — now protected as a National Trust heritage area and significant archaeological site.
Entry is included in the Burra Heritage Passport, which unlocks the town's scattered historic sites including the miners' dugouts along the creek.
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