Magpie & Stump Hotel
Mintaro's bullock-driver pub, pouring since 1850.
Completed in 1850 at the entrance to Mintaro, the Magpie & Stump served the bullock drivers of the Burra copper route and still welcomes travellers with pub meals and a beer garden.
When copper rolled south from Burra to Port Wakefield by bullock dray, the drivers rested their teams at Mintaro — and drank at the hotel completed here in December 1850. First licensed as the Mintaro Hotel under Mathew Muir, the pub has carried the Magpie & Stump name twice: briefly from 1851 to 1853, and again from 1976 to today.
Fire destroyed the building in 1904 and it was rebuilt the same year, which is the slate-and-stone pub you see now at the entrance to the village. After a period of closure it was painstakingly restored by owners who lived in a caravan out the back while they fixed the leaking roof and warped floors; today it serves traditional pub food, local wines and cold beer, with accommodation and a generous beer garden.
It is the natural lunch stop on a day exploring the Mintaro slate heritage village and nearby Martindale Hall.
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Image credits
- Magpie & Stump Hotel, Mintaro cropped.jpg by GTHO , CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons