This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
Site-level location · 41.2199° S, 146.3462° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Spreyton grows apples, and the bakery still gives its address as the Big Apple complex.
That detail says more than the sculpture does. An oversized apple went up here because this is apple country – the Mersey valley behind Devonport has been growing them commercially for well over a century, and Tasmania as a whole built an export industry on fruit before the British market closed to it in the 1970s. The Apple Isle nickname was earned rather than invented.
What is interesting is the object's afterlife as an address. The Big Apple has become the name of the site, so businesses on it locate themselves by reference to a fibreglass fruit rather than by street number. Spreyton Bakery still identifies as being within the Big Apple complex, which means the sculpture is functioning as a place name.
That is the strongest possible evidence that a Big Thing has done its job. Photographs are the visible measure; becoming the name of the ground you stand on is the real one.
Burnie City Council currently promotes the apple among North West Tasmania's Big Things, so it sits within a regional grouping rather than standing alone – the same guide that carries the truffle dog at Deloraine and the Big Penguin up the coast.
Spreyton is a few minutes from the Spirit of Tasmania terminal at Devonport, which puts it in front of a very large proportion of everyone who brings a car to the island.
The file is empty on its size, the decade it belongs to and a named maker.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
Burnie City Council currently promotes the Big Apple as a North West Tasmania Big Thing, while Spreyton Bakery still identifies itself as being within the Big Apple complex.
ACCESS
The Big Apple is associated with the operating Big Apple complex at 73 Mersey Main Road. Use the complex as the visitor destination rather than the sculpture pin.
