CLONARD - STONE COTTAGE REMNANTS

275 OHERNS ROAD EPPING, WHITTLESEA CITY

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Victorian Heritage Inventory

Clonard_Epping_cottage remnants_KJ_Nov 09

Statement of Significance

• Additional Place Information

  • History

    CLONARD - STONE COTTAGE REMNANTS - History

    [Information from David Moloney, 'Heritage Assessment of Clonard 275 O'Herns Road, Epping', for Tom and Helen Love and family, October 2009]

    The first auction of rural land in Victoria was on 12 September 1848 in Sydney. It included 7783 acres of land in the parish of Wollert, which included the future site of Clonard: Crown Portion 5, Parish of Wollert, 1045 acres in area. It was purchased by prominent Sydney speculators John Hughes and John Hosking for 5/- an acre. In June 1840 they sold to Charles Campbell, a prominent Sydney pastoralist, politician and barrister. In August 1840 Campbell advertised the subdivision and sale of the same land, which he called the Argyle Estate. It was subdivided into farming allotments of between 50 and 500 acres.

    The subject site, Argyle Estate Lot No 5, was purchased for £5 an acre on 24 December 1840 by John Alston, of Melbourne, variously described in the contracts of sale as 'Esquire' or 'Gentleman'. He paid £600 cash and the £1800 balance was mortgaged to Campbell. The land was a rectangle of 480 acres, with its northern boundary on what is today O'Herns Road. Alston had arrived in Port Phillip by 1838, and was married to Mary Hervey, whose brothers were large squatters. He named the property Maryfield after his wife. In the 1841 census five adults were living on the property, and accommodation was an 'unfinished' wooden house. The location of this house is unknown. Two children were born to the Alstons at Maryfield, in 1841 and 1842. The farm was is likely to have been predominantly grazing, with arable parts of the land being cropped with wheat or hay.

    Depression hit Port Phillip in 1841. Alston defaulted on his mortgage, and by 1844 Campbell noted that Alston had left the property, and it had been let for £50 a year. Alston by the late 1840s was a pastoralist on the upper Murray. In 1849 Campbell advertised that he was foreclosing on the loan and resuming the land unless the mortgage was paid within six months. There are no records of any improvements to the site during the Alston occupation.

    Cropping in the Merri Creek area declined in the 1850s. Many of the small farms close to Melbourne moved into dairying and hay growing.

    The Maryfield land was to remain in the Campbell family, as part of what became known as the Campbellfield Estate, for several generations, being leased to tenant farmers until the early twentieth century.

    The earliest surviving lease contract, a seven year lease for £156 per annum with Frederick Winter, dates to 1858, whose address and occupation was given then as 'Parish of Wollert, farmer'. Frederick Winter was in fact Friedrich Winter, from Mecklenburg, who was among the first group of German immigrants who had arrived in Melbourne in 1850 on the ship Pribislaw, part of William Westgarth's scheme to promote German immigration to Victoria. He arrived with his wife and at least three children. The Winters were one of the original families to settle in Westgarthtown (or Germantown) at Thomastown. The Germans not only bought land at Westgarthtown, but some also leased land further afield, several along the Merri Creek. Winter leased his Thomastown land to a neighbour, and by 1858 he had leased the 480 acre Maryfield farm from Campbell and moved there. He was still living there when he died in 1866, aged 55.

    At the western end of the site are the remains of what was once a bluestone house with chimneys of hand-made bricks. This is thought to have been the house built by Frederick Winter. As winter lived here from 1858 until his death in 1866, the house could date from the late 1850s.

    A clearing sale of the Messrs Winter Brothers' farm, including all stock and farming equipment, was held in March 1880. The inventory indicates that the farm was being used primarily as a dairy farm. The stock included '30 prime cows now in milk; 20 springers and dry cows; 2 bulls, two and four years old; and 10 good heifers'.

    In 1880 the lease of Maryfield was taken over by Thomas Harrison Baker, 'Dairyman of Darebin Creek'. In the 1880s he was said to be operating the largest dairy farm in Victoria on land leased from Campbell, on which he was grazing about 600 cows. Baker did not live on the Maryfield property, but on the Merri Creek side of the estate.

    The former cottage in the western part of Clonard was demolished during the second half of the twentieth century. It was originally a single storey bluestone house with chimneys of hand-made bricks, but is now only a heap of rubble.

    Assessment Against Criteria

    CLONARD - STONE COTTAGE REMNANTS - Assessment Against Criteria

    a. Importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria's cultural history

    b. Possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Victoria's cultural history.

    c. Potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Victoria's cultural history.

    The remnants of the c1858 bluestone house on the Clonard farm have the potential to contain archaeological deposits and objects that relate to the history and use of the site.

    d. Importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural places or environments.

    e. Importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics.

    f. Importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period.

    g. Strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons. This includes the significance of a place to Indigenous peoples as part of their continuing and developing cultural traditions.

    h. Special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in Victoria's history.

    Interpretation of Site

    CLONARD - STONE COTTAGE REMNANTS - Interpretation of Site

    Ruins of c.1860 brick and bluestone cottage.

    Archaeological Significance

    CLONARD - STONE COTTAGE REMNANTS - Archaeological Significance

    The site has the potential to contain subsurface features, deposits and artefacts associated with the use of the cottage by the Winter family in the mid 19th century.

    Heritage Inventory Description

    CLONARD - STONE COTTAGE REMNANTS - Heritage Inventory Description

    Piles of bluestone and hand made bricks. Remnants of early stone cottage.
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