Richard Hawker

Devonshire House Mintaro SA

Richard passed away 12 February 2026, in Clare, aged 80

This is an article he wrote for the Federation Celebration CD-ROM published by Clare Regional History Group.

"In July 1980 whilst staying in Clare with winemaker Rick and his wife Pepe Robertson of Robertson Wines, I discovered the little village of Mintaro. In those days, it was a sleepy little hamlet with un-renovated beautiful heritage buildings just waiting to be loved once again.

Devonshire was one of those built as a hotel in 1856 to service the bullock teams and the Spanish-speaking muleteers carting ore from the Burra mines to Port Wakefield.

One of the unique features of the old hotel was the 75ft x 30ft "Long Room" and its cellars that housed the first "skittle alley" in the Southern Hemisphere.

I bought the "Devonshire" at auction from a lovely old couple that had called the place home for 60 years."

My Varied History

"I was born in 1946 and left school in 1960, then chose to make my career in Advertising and Public Relations for 13 years.

In 1973, I first went into the hospitality business by purchasing the Broughton Arms Hotel in Yacka, just 20 miles north of Clare. I renovated it and turned it into an English Inn with fine home cooking and quality accommodation.

In the late 1970s, I bought the second of my hotels at Mt Mary, south of Morgan and again revamped it.

A year or two later, I sold it after delivering a touch of insanity to Riverland regions!!"

Devonshire House

"In 1980, it was a big gamble financially to undertake this new concept in the hospitality industry.

I've been told that I was virtually the first B&B in South Australia and certainly the first nouveau riche to acquire a property in Mintaro from outside the area in decades.

Having a background in advertising and PR, I had a few contacts in the press who kindly wrote one or two articles in the Adelaide papers.

My big break came when State Affair on Channel 7 did a 5-minute TV documentary on primetime, hosted by the late Guy Blamore and Bob Harnett.

It was at the time when Mintaro had a manual phone exchange.

That night after the Devonshire House feature went to air, the poor lass put through over 60 calls for bookings. It worked out to be over a year's booking in advance! That was my big break and I am forever grateful!

Right from the start, I decided to promote Devonshire House for three couples who were friends that all wanted an all inclusive package of fine food, wine and two nights accommodation at a fixed price.

Friday night featured a (prearranged menu) three course home cooked meal served with Clare Valley wines seated around the refectory table in the massive kitchen.

Menus varied but usually on Friday nights were thick heavy soups, crusty bread, massive chicken and vegetable pies with the ever popular mashed spuds or good old steak and kidney pies and vegies, and for dessert apple and rhubarb pies or golden syrup dumplings, served with jugs of thick or clotted cream - all non fattening!

A full English breakfast was served again in the kitchen on Saturday morning usually 9:30am after which they would waddle away to visit and buy from the wineries in the Clare Valley.

We did not serve lunch, so the guests would be out for several hours exploring. That gave us time to make beds and so on, relight the open fires and generally have the house looking immaculate for their return and their siesta before dinner.

Saturday dinner was always a four course silver service extravaganza served around a mahogany table in the dining room. Generally the guests loved getting into their glad-rags and I was their butler and dressed accordingly. I served at the table and corked and served the wines that they had bought from the Clare Valley wineries that day.

They would start off on a light venison or brussel sprout soup. The roasts with full complement of vegetables would be beef, lamb or pork, served from silver domed meat cover and carved at the table. Desserts at times were crème caramels or avocado and strawberry crepes after which they would take ports or liquors in the drawing room in front of the open fire and have their coffees with a chocolate gateau.

Sunday morning was always a slow start to the day for my 6 weary guests - hence we would serve "brunch" around 10:30am of fresh fruit, "Eggs Devonshire", similar to Eggs Benedict, served with shaved bacon on English muffins, and toast and home made jams and buckets of fresh squeezed orange juice and percolated filtered Brazilian coffee.

It was, they said, "a true country weekend house party, elegance without the stuffiness".

They usually left around midday to drive back to their real world and I would go to bed having worked 42 hours in that 48-hour period.

My clientele were from all walks of life. We had guests from Sydney who would fly in regularly in their twin-engine plane - buzz the house and land 5kms up the road at the Farrell Flat aerodrome.

The week prior to their arrival I would hire any car that was available from Clare Valley Motors and the guests would use it to sight see and buy wine at the wineries.

One particular trip they bought so much wine that the plane was so overloaded, the pilot had to take off without the other guests and fly to the larger runway at Balaklava.

I drove the five others to Balaklava to pick up the plane - it was a great joke!

We worked even harder when you knew it was a special weekend for a particular group of guests who had to really save to have "that weekend away".

After 15 - 16 years and more than 6,000 house guests, I sold dear old Devonshire and took a year off renovating my new home at Sevenhill.

Then at the young age of fifty I went back into the workforce part-time, yes, back into the hospitality industry.

I worked at Jim Barry Wines in Cellar Door and cooked for the Barry family when they entertain their clients from interstate and overseas.

So I am still saying that the hospitality industry is all SPARKLE-FARKLE.

Clare Valley in this day and age is no longer the secret Utopia, but is still the Utopia for tourists.

HEALTH, FINE FOOD, WINE AND GOOD COMPANY ARE THE ESSENCE OF LIFE!!

THE CLARE VALLEY HAS IT ALL.