The haunting ruins of Port Essington reveal the story of Britain’s failed northern colony, abandoned after just 11 years of hardship.
Remote location of the Victoria Settlement
The ruins line up as if designed to please the eye. Built out of chunky stone with tall chimney-like tops, they look like miniature temples, remnant traces of a long-lost civilisation.
The truth is more mundane. They’re British-built houses, and they really are chimneys. It’s just that they were constructed in the most inconceivably inappropriate place.
The Cobourg Peninsula, even by outback Australian standards, is remote. From Darwin, it’s a seven-hour drive involving river crossings, dirt tracks that resemble an obstacle course, and passage through permit-only Arnhem Land.
Aside from national park rangers, only a handful of Indigenous people live here. It remains pristine – a wetland sanctuary for migratory birds, and a marine haven for apex predators. Swim here, and you risk meeting a crocodile or bull shark.
Founding the settlement at Port Essington
This is one of the worst places imaginable to build a settlement. Yet in 1838 the British Navy did just that, choosing survival-challenged symbolism over practicality by laying a marker on Australia’s northern coast.
The Victoria Settlement was founded on the shores of Port Essington. Cornish stonemasons constructed stout, sturdy houses that were laughably unsuited to the climate. Fireplaces and thick, windowless walls were the last things needed in one of the sweatiest parts of the Top End.
Dave McMahon, head guide of Venture North Safaris, says: “They never adapted. The only thing they had going for them was persistence.”
Struggles with crops, disease and climate
The settlers tried to plant British crops, which quickly failed. They suffered from scurvy, despite an abundance of vitamin C in native fruits.
The hospital was even more grim. Designed with no airflow, settlers believed malaria was caused by bad air. Inside, conditions would have been hot, humid and stale.
Only the foundations remain today, along with the hospital kitchen ruins. But it was heavily used during the community’s disastrous 11 years.
Dave notes: “There were times when every single person bar one was in the hospital. They would have to wake a malaria-stricken surgeon and ask how to cut off someone’s arm.”
Misery and mortality in the settlement
Because the British Navy kept detailed records, we know life here was unrelenting misery. After just a year, a cyclone destroyed buildings and killed ten people. Supply ships were often delayed by weeks or months.
Punishments were harsh. A blacksmith who traded arrow tips with local Indigenous people for food was lashed nearly to death.
Every child brought here died. Every child born here died. Many women died in childbirth. Glass fragments scattered in the ruins suggest how the settlers coped: they drank heavily.
Contact with Macassan traders
Champagne bottles came from French expeditions. Gin arrived via the Dutch. And the Macassans from Sulawesi offered an unexpected lifeline. For centuries they had come to harvest sea cucumbers, and they were willing to trade other goods.
Their legacy remains in a tamarind tree at the settlement’s entrance, and in the wild cattle and pigs roaming Cobourg’s forest tracks today.
Surviving ruins and the graveyard
Many of the Victoria Settlement buildings have withstood cyclones, though they are now home to snakes, cane toads and goannas.
The graveyard is the best-preserved site. An obelisk honours Emma Lambrick, the midwife and matriarch of the community. She is one of 58 people who died here and is remembered on a plaque nearby.
Two of the last three to die were the surgeon and assistant surgeon. Soon after, the settlement was abandoned.
Legacy of Australia’s lost city
What remains today feels like a small-scale Tikal or Machu Picchu. At the very top of the Top End, a forgotten history has been left behind.
