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Ross accommodation, restaurants, history, things to do

Ross is very typically English and, with its warm Ross sandstone, is reminiscent of the towns which can be seen in the Cotswolds or in north Oxfordshire and it is beautifully preserved. Cobble-style paths and old, tall elm trees line the main road and give this picture-perfect town an air of tranquillity.

The town of Ross itself is listed on the Register of the National Estate and many of the town’s historic buildings, mainly built from sandstone, are listed in their own right. There are a total of 40 historic buildings in Ross.

On an expedition in 1821, Governor Lachlan Macquarie passed through the area himself and, as he recorded in his journal,
"I named our last Night's Station 'Ross', in honor of H. M. Buchanan Esqr. – that being the name of his Seat on Loch-Lomond in Scotland; this part of Argyle Plains on the Right Bank of the Macquarie River being very beautiful and commanding a noble view."

Later that year, a timber bridge was built over the river and subsequently Ross became an important stopover on road journeys between Launceston and Hobart. It developed as a base for the local garrison and became a centre for trade for the surrounding district.

The Ross stone bridge was convict constructed in 1836. It is the third oldest bridge still standing in Australia and is recognised as the most important convict-built bridge in the country. Commissioned by Lieutenant-Governor Arthur, the bridge was designed by architect John Lee Archer, with the convict work team including two stonemasons, James Colbeck and Daniel Herbert, the latter being credited with the intricate carvings along both sides of the bridge.

The main crossroad in Ross is known, with some humour, as Temptation, Recreation, Salvation and Damnation. The reason for this combination is that on one corner (Temptation) stood the Man-O-Ross Hotel, on another corner (Salvation) was the Roman Catholic Church, on the third corner was the Town Hall (Recreation) and on the fourth stood the Jail (Damnation).

The convict site dates back to the 1840s. Usually referred to as the Female Factory, it was one of only a few female convict compounds in Australia. There is one remaining building on the site, the Assistant Superintendent's Quarters, which currently houses a display relating to the site.

Another attraction not to miss is the Ross Bakery, with its original semi-scotch brick ‘3 bag’ wood-fired oven. (In a scotch oven the fire is lit inside the oven; in a semi-scotch oven it’s lit in a chamber to one side of the oven.) The bakery, which has the capacity to bake more than 300 loaves of bread (‘3-bag’ refers to three hundredweight bags of flour), has been operating on the site for more than a century.

Ross enjoys a daily average maximum temperature of 23.5 degrees Celsius in January and 11.5 degrees Celsius in June. It is 80 kilometres south of Launceston and 122 kilometres north of Hobart.