Chapel Hill - The Chosen

CHAPEL HILL The picturesque Chapel Hill vineyards stretch across the historic Seaview sub region of McLaren Vale. The area was first settled soon after the colony of South Australia was proclaimed in 1836. During the 1850s, the landscape of the region transformed from wheat growing, grazing and mixed farming to orcharding and vineyards. A colonial wine industry gathered steam in the 1860s with growing exports to England, India, New Zealand and other corners of the Empire. The settlers, mostly of English origin, were less religious than the Lutherans of the Barossa Valley, but the church still played an important part in the daily lives of family. The 1865 chapel was a local landmark where social gatherings, including tennis competitions and cricket, took place. For many years it was also the Seaview community’s local school. The region’s proximity to Adelaide was brought nearer by better roads and the increasing use of motor transport. Village life changed, and by 1965, the chapel was deconsecrated and abandoned. Adelaide Professor Tom Nelson is the former head of music, drama and performing arts at South Australia’s Institute of Technology. When he stumbled on the derelict ironstone chapel and surrounding grazing paddocks in 1971, he first imagined using the land for his wife’s horses. ‘But we eventually found ourselves planting grapes, because it seemed the best way forward. It was really as simple as that. It gave me great pleasure to get everything going and making it a talking point of the district,’ he recalled. After its acquisition from the Uniting Church, the property was renamed Chapel Vale, because at the time Chapel Hill could not be trademarked. Although the land gently undulates, it is located on a ridge above the strikingly beautiful Onkaparinga Gorge. Over a seven-year period, and with limited capital, Tom and Philippa Nelson renovated the old chapel over the weekends. Whilst fossicking for antiques and building materials, they found a beautiful 19th century stained-glass church window depicting a pastoral scene and the words ‘I am the true vine’ and ‘the bread of life.’ It was the perfect centrepiece for a chapel renovation. The coloured light fills the interior and promotes a sense of tranquillity.

Chapel Hill