Crafers

About Crafers

Crafers is a town in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia, located south-east of Adelaide and considered an outer suburb of the Adelaide metropolitan area. Named after David Crafer who arrived in Adelaide in 1838, he and his wife established the Sawyers Arms inn in 1839, just three years after the colony was founded. The area at the foot of Mount Lofty was known as the Tiers, infamous for being a haunt of woodcutters on the run from authorities. The heritage-listed Mount Lofty Botanic Garden opened in 1977 and features extensive European and Australian native plants. The Church of the Epiphany was built in 1878 on land donated by Henry Scott. Crafers was hard hit by the Ash Wednesday bushfires on 16 February 1983, with many homes destroyed including the Anglican theological college and priory of St Michael's House. The Heysen Tunnels and South Eastern Freeway interchange at Crafers was for many years the start point of the freeway linking Adelaide to Murray Bridge and Melbourne.