MonissaEarlier in the year I did a blog post for the Young Town Inn. (I had this idea a few years ago that I could document and try to find the location of all the hotels that used to be in Launceston (https://monissa.com/hotels/).
There were a few more than I thought. Some are complicated and long, with lots of changes of licensee (and location and name). Others, like the Young Town Inn, are short lived and simple. I tend to do the latter and put the others off.)
Anyway, Young Town Inn (1860-1879) was a inn for travellers on the edge of Launceston. But where I couldn't work out.
"This license was granted on the ground that it was erected at the turn off on the direct road to the White Hills, and would do away with the necessity for travellers to and from the White Hills going about three quarters of a mile out of their way to Franklin Village to obtain refreshment."
(Cornwall Chronicle, 3 December 1859)
What's "the direct road to the White Hills"? Opossum Road? But I'd say that’s in Kings Meadows, and it's more like 15 miles from Franklin Village, at least on today's road. I have looked at many maps. None of them s/h/o/w/ /t/h/i/s/ /p/a/r/t/ /o/f/ /t/h/e/ /c/i/t/y/ show alternative routes to White Hills.
So I filed it under short-lived, nothing more to be known and moved on.
Then this week I found a photo, probably taken in the 1960s (or later). https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Record/Archives/LPIC33-4-1
So it was known and in existence until recent times! (Also, this thing where a building is known by a name it held for only a short part of it's life.)
Still not finding anything else about it. Although I did find this line in "Highway in Van Diemen's Land" (George Hawley Stancombe, 1968, p.219):
"At the top of Young Town hill still stands the Young Town Inn, which was licensed to John Baker in 1874, and seems to have enjoyed an unsavoury reputation. Baker was keeper at the Sandhill toll-gate for a time."