00:02So where do Canberra's timber bus shelters go to retire? Well one bus shelter that has served the
00:09community for several decades has been repurposed not once but three times. Can you guess where?
00:17Looks like a garden shed now because it is a garden shed but for many years this was a bus
00:22stop where was it? The bus stop was in Constitution Avenue outside St John's Church and it had a board
00:32across the top above the opening that said St John's Church. How did it end up here because we're
00:38not anywhere near St John's now we're at another church in Ainslie where are we and why is this old
00:45bus stop here? Right okay we're at the Church of Christ on Limestone Avenue and in the 1960s
00:52when the tennis courts were developed there was a need for somewhere to keep the nets and the balls
00:59and so on and so our minister at the time Gordon Stirling obviously knew somebody who knew somebody
01:06and they were able to purchase or were given this bus shed that was no longer needed by the bus
01:16people
01:18and so we brought it up to here and used it as a tennis shed. So but not only a
01:26tennis shed I understand
01:28it's also been used as a Sunday school? Yes a Sunday school classroom when we ran out of rooms for
01:36groups in the Sunday school area over in the church so it was used for a couple of years for
01:44that purpose as
01:45well on a Sunday morning. And now it's used as a garden shed because the tennis courts were converted
01:49into a community garden about 20 years ago? About 20 odd years ago. Right. They were the first one and
01:58then the other court were opened up and developed as gardens for people in the community who didn't
02:07have a garden to have somewhere they could grow their own vegetables and flowers and things. So this bus
02:13shelter has been a bus shelter it's been a tennis clubhouse tennis shed it's been a Sunday school
02:18Yes. And it's now a garden shed for the community so it's had four different uses. Yes. Can you envisage
02:25any further uses what might happen here in another 10, 20, 100 years or will it last that long? It's
02:30in pretty good nick for over 100 years or 100 years old wouldn't it be almost. Yes. Yes. I think
02:35I don't
02:36know how good some of the timber is but I think it'll last for a while longer I don't know
02:43what it'll be what
02:45its future is but while the garden's here I guess there will be some use for it. Thanks so much
02:51Ian for
02:51letting me know about it and sharing with me some of the stories of this heritage timber bus
02:58shelter that's served the community in four different ways over almost a century. That's right.
03:02Yes. Yeah. Thank you Ian.
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