On the edge of the Murrumbidgee River, about 40 kilometres south of Canberra, sits a weatherboard building that has outlasted floods, bushfires, and even a tornado for more than a century.
The Tharwa General Store has been many things to many people: a post office, a mechanic’s workshop, a fuel stop, a lolly shop, a watering hole, and above all, a place where a community comes together.
It’s been run by the same family for 100 years, but that’s about to change.
After three generations of selling everything, the Jeffery family are now selling the block of land and handing over the keys.
“It gets to a point in time where the family can’t keep going, and we’d like to see somebody else take over,” owner Kevin Jeffery says.
Kevin Jeffrey says he and his family are ready for someone else to take over the store. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)
A natural stopping point
Tharwa holds the distinction of being the oldest official settlement in the Australian Capital Territory, proclaimed in 1862.
“Tharwa was always a trading post. This was the idea of Tharwa — the river crossing back in the late 1800s between Queanbeyan and the mountains. So it always had that opportunity to be a local trading post for the community,” Kevin says.
The store’s weatherboard buildings date back to 1922.
Kevin says they were transported to the site, believed to have been brought out from inner Canberra’s construction areas in the early days of the capital’s development.
“I don’t know how, but they definitely were brought out,” he says.
The Tharwa General Store is being sold after a century being owned by several generations of the Jeffery family. (ABC News: Lish Fejer)
Three generations of Jeffery family
Clarrie Jeffery bought the store in 1926 with his wife, Ruby.
Surrounded by farms, they catered to the small rural community by selling almost everything they needed — groceries, grain and hay supplies, salt cubes for stock, petrol, 1-cent lollies and even a mechanic operating out of the back shed.
“We had quite a range,” Kevin says.
“We did the lunch orders for the school, so when the school kids would come in in the morning, they’d come with their bag and their money.
The Tharwa General Store, pictured here in 1947, used to provide lunch orders for school children. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)
“There was a primary school here, but the kids, when they went to high school, would go on a bus to inner south.
“The bus would stop here at the end of the trip on the way back, and everyone would get out and come into the shop for lollies and ice creams.”
When he was 14, Kevin’s father, Valantine, inherited the shop when his father, Clarrie, died in 1948. Val went on to run it for over 70 years.
Val was a community man, and connected people during tough times and fought for the community to keep its rural heart — its primary school, its bridge and its unique place on the edge of a growing capital.
Over the years, developers have come knocking, sensing potential in a picturesque property within striking distance of a capital city.
Val Jeffery, pictured here in 2016, before he was elected to the ACT Legislative Assembly at the age of 81. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
“The community didn’t want it,” Kevin says.
His father, he says, made his priorities clear.
“Dad preferred community to profit, which is good.”
It’s a scene familiar to anyone who grew up in small communities across Australia. What you get from a general store is not always what’s for sale.
Community building
Kevin describes his father as someone who felt a deep personal obligation to the people around him.
Valantine Jeffery behind the counter of the Tharwa General store in 1946, just two years before he took over as owner in 1948. (Supplied: Kevin Jeffery)
“Anywhere where he could, he would look to improve the life in the community he could help with,” he says.
“But he really loved the shop because people would come here and talk, and he just loved the atmosphere.”
That instinct for community service extended well beyond the shop counter. Val was elected to the ACT Legislative Assembly in 2016 at the age of 81, becoming the oldest person ever to sit in that chamber.
Before his brief stint in politics, he had served as captain of the local bushfire brigade for 38 years and campaigned vigorously for changes to the ACT’s fire response following the devastating 2003 fires. He died in 2017.
Kevin took over the store and has run it since.
The Hub (and the off-licence pub)
With the town having lost its pub years ago, the Tharwa General Store sells cold beer as an off-licence venue. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)
The store’s role as a community hub is easy to see. Locals pop in to collect packages, grab a beer, or lodge their entries in the weekly footy tipping competition that’s run out of the shop for years.
“This is getting into that busy afternoon time,” Kevin says, watching the steady stream of familiar faces. “Packages, footy tips.”
It also sells a cold beer. As an off-licence, it’s a meeting point in a town that lost its pub years ago.
As Canberra comes closer to Tharwa, the needs of the community have changed — and it’s a bit more of a two-way street with day trippers coming to the mountains for a day out and an ice cream.
“The road between Cotter and Tidbinbilla and Tharwa is actually famous across Australia for motorbike riding,” Kevin says.
“We get a lot of local motorbike riders who come out here multiple times a week and stop for a coffee and a doughnut or a beer.”
Through fire, flood and drought
Kevin Jeffrey says in a small place like Tharwa, a general store helps hold a community together. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)
The facade of the building has been the backdrop for community events and meeting points during bushfires, and has held strong.
For a small village, it’s been tested over the years. The 2003 Canberra bushfires pushed to Tharwa’s edge. Floods have periodically cut the community off.
Tharwa Bridge was closed in 2006 due to safety concerns and did not fully reopen until 2011, isolating the village for years.
Kevin recounts one of the more dramatic incidents with characteristic understatement: in the 1960s, a “small but fierce” tornado struck the large shed out the back of the property.
“It took down the whole side of the shed,” he says.
“Took some time to rebuild it. Luckily, it didn’t hit the shop itself.”
Kevin Jeffery says he would like to see the store and post office remain for the community. (ABC News: Lish Fejer)
Through all of it, the store has been the hub, not through design — simply by being open.
“A good community needs to stand strong together. And a place like Tharwa, the shop sort of holds it together. Even more than government facilities or the hall. Purely because it’s always open, it’s always on,” Kevin says.
What’s in store?
Kevin is careful about what he hopes comes next.
The local community, he says, wants to make sure the store and post office endure — they’re not ready to drive into Canberra for everything.
It’s the intention that matters, and the hope that someone can continue it as a hub for the community.
“I could see some younger people come in and do something here, that would be fantastic,” he said.