THE PINES (FORESHORE RESERVE)

BEACH ROAD AND CLIFF ROAD SHOREHAM, MORNINGTON PENINSULA SHIRE

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Victorian Heritage Register

THE PINES (FORESHORE RESERVE) SOHE 2008

Statement of Significance

• Additional Place Information

  • History

    THE PINES (FORESHORE RESERVE) - History

     

    Shoreham

    The area around the present township of Shoreham was settled in the 1840s and 1850s by squatter Charles Manton and then by Henry Tuck who took over Manton’s Run in 1846. The run consisted 6400 acres from Flinders to present day Shoreham. In about 1855, Tuck obtained the pre-emptive right of 640 acres at Manton’s Creek.

    The next generation of settlers came to the area as a result of the Selection Acts. These were Irish families who settled at Shoreham.  The Byrne, Kennedy, Nowlan, Riley and Higgins families selected land around 1869. (Parish Plan, Map Collection, State Library of Victoria).  The Map of Mornington Peninsula [Department of Lands and Survey, 1889?] (Map Collection, State Library of Victoria) shows houses built on the land owned by James Byrne, Michael Byrne and Edmund Riley.

    The Roman Catholic Church purchased land for a church at the corner of Flinders Road and Beach Road in 1871. The remaining land along Beach Road was sold in 1887. One of the purchasers of land in Shoreham at that time was lawyer John Thomas Thorold Smith who built a cliff top house called Sheldon on 812 acres on the northern bank of the Stony Creek.

    Shoreham developed as a holiday destination between about 1916 and 1929 when substantial houses were built along the cliff. A guest house was built in the 1920s called “The Cliffs”. (Rose Series postcard. State Library of Victoria, Picture Collection). The Shoreham beach was advertised as a seaside resort in 1923, when the subdivision of Shoreham-by- the- Sea was advertised for sale to prospective holiday home owners. Within the advertising brochure, the real estate agent noted the “eastern aspect sheltered from the prevailing strong south-west winds” which ensured “luxuriant growth, right to the water’s edge”. (Sydney T Haynes, Auctioneers. Shoreham-on-the-Sea Estate. [Brochure] 1923). However by 1939, Shoreham was still sparsely occupied, with only a few houses on Beach Road. (Western Port: Australia 1:63,360, 1939, Map Collection, State Library of Victoria: DNRE Reserves Branch File R/S 3297)

    Landscape History Context

     In assessing landscape sites under the Heritage Act, past land use is taken into consideration. . The planting of introduced species is part of our post contact history.  Conifer plantings are associated with the history of the way land was used by Europeans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Such plantings reflect certain historical themes, such as farming practices, seaside recreation and cemetery planning. The remnant plantings of pines and cypresses are markers in the landscape to document the use of the land in the post-European period.

     

    In the nineteenth and early twentieth century the planting of pines provided a reminder of the northern hemisphere. The choice of specific types of conifer for plantings in Victoria in the nineteenth century reflected an enthusiasm for recently discovered species. During his term as Director of the Botanic Gardens, Baron von Mueller was responsible for propagating tens of thousands of conifers, many of which had only been introduced to cultivation from the wild within the previous thirty or so years. Trees such as the Himalayan and Atlas cedars, the Monterey pine and others were only discovered by European botanists in the 1850s and were of great interest to the wider community in Victoria. Mueller introduced pinus radiata to Victoria, while he exported eucalypts to other parts of the world including California where they are an important part of the landscape. Clement Hodgkinson, government surveyor and landscape designer in the nineteenth century, used conifers with indigenous trees in planning parks and gardens round the State. (Georgina Whitehead, Civilising the City. 1997:15-16)  

    In the early twentieth century, pines continued to be planted extensively. Pine trees were advocated as suitable for planting around water catchments for shelter from the sun and strong winds.(Education Gazette and Teachers Aid, 17 September 1929: 223)  In the 1920s pine plantations (usually p.radiata) adjacent to primary schools were established by individual government schools round Victoria as part of an educational programme designed to teach students about their physical surroundings. The aim of forestry education by means of planting and caring for pines was to educate children on the value of trees in the economy and in the care of the land. The involvement of schools in forestry from 1923 in this way was an important step in the formation of the Australian environmental movement. The planting of pines at Shoreham in the 1920s was not out of step with that particular stage in Australian thinking about the environment.

    The use of pines and cypresses as windbreaks round orchards and crops, around pastoral homesteads and along driveways and roads was widespread in Victoria. Nineteenth century settlers cleared the land of native vegetation and then realised they needed to protect their crops, orchards or gardens from strong winds. Their choice was to plant pines and cypresses as windrows. At Templestowe, the only remains of the orchards which once covered the area are now lines of pines and cypresses planted in the 1890s.  (B. Pertzel and F. Walters: Manningham: From Country to City. Kew, Vic., Arcadia, 2001:70-1). Where a farmhouse has been demolished, or an orchard removed, often the surrounding pine windbreak is all that is left to indicate its presence. The association of such plantings with the orchard industry around Western Port has left many stands of conifers which are important in defining the character of the region.  Roadside avenues and windbreaks of pines and cypresses tell us of the previous land use of the region.

    Pines were used as windbreaks to protect gardens. The Pinetum at the Williamstown Botanic Gardens forms an effective windbreak for the gardens in a coastal setting. The planting of the pines at Shoreham may have been to protect the gardens of the holiday homes on Beach and Cliff Roads.

    Exotic plantings may be the result of land management practices which are no longer considered beneficial to the indigenous landscape but the plantings remain as a reminder of past farming or orcharding activities. Pines were used as a soil stabilisation measure in the 1880s and 1890s as a land management practice to prevent erosion.(John Hawker. Pers comm.)

    Pines and cypresses have traditionally been associated with seaside resorts and passive recreation. The use of exotic trees in the seaside landscape in Victoria was an attempt, quite consciously, to imitate the appearance of English seaside resorts. Foreshore reserves were planted with conifers, as at Sorrento, where the esplanade is lined with cypresses and pines planted in the early 1900s. Other similar plantings exist or have existed at other beach resorts. There were similar stands of pines at the foreshore reserves at Somers, Balnarring and Merricks but these are no longer intact.  At Queenscliff and Lorne, cypresses are important elements in the beachside landscape. Mornington Park is planted with cypresses and pines. Foreshore pine plantings are also very common at inland lakes’ swimming and boating areas, for instance in the Wimmera at Lake Toolondo, Green Lake and Natimuk Lake. These provide shade for picnic and recreational areas. Pines are usually associated with more permanent structures or established settlements, whereas foreshore camping areas were usually in ti-tree behind the dunes.

     

    HISTORY OF PLACE

    The Pines, Foreshore Reserve at Shoreham contains a stand of approximately 250 pine trees (pinus radiata) which stretches along The Pines Beach from Cliff Road to the main The Pines Beach Car Park. The pines form a continuous line acting as a boundary to the beach.  Most of these date from the early twentieth century.

    The origin of the Shoreham Pines is not entirely clear. They may have been planted by local landowners and early holiday makers. Those along the Stony Creek are believed to have been planted by the Byrne family, early Shoreham settlers.  Mrs James Byrne had 310 acres between Stony Creek and the road on which were established “a young plantation of pines and other ornamental trees”. (Mornington Standard 23 May 1903). Those at the end of Cliff Road were planted by Mr J.T.T.Smith, K.C., who owned the property Sheldon. It is believed that 8 to 10 were planted in the 1920s  by Melbourne physician Clive Fitts (later Sir Clive Fitts) whose Beach Road holiday home bordered the foreshore reserve. The planting was possibly intended as a windbreak for his garden.  The later pines beneath the Fitts planting were said to be intended to produce timber for apple boxes for the local orchardists. There is conflicting oral history evidence about whether some of the other pines, as described in the 1940s, were planted or self-sown but it is clear that this stand above the Shoreham beach has been allowed to remain for seventy to eighty years.

    The trees on the cliff overlooking the beach and lining the access road and the banks of the Stony Creek, give a distinctive character to the beach and have led to its being named as The Pines Beach. The plantings give shade to the beach and define the coast line. There are no built structures (apart from a toilet block) on the foreshore reserve which is accessed by a narrow access road leading from Beach Road, Shoreham. The reserve is also visible from Philip Island as an unbroken stretch of pines.

    It is likely that these pines on the Foreshore at Shoreham were planted initially as a windrow and have become associated with the beach to the extent that the name The Pines has been attached to the foreshore at Shoreham. The Pines have been identified as part of the cultural landscape of the Shoreham area.

    As a recent report on the Pines acknowledges, “The presence of pinus radiata has resulted in the naming of the beach as “Pines Beach” by the local community. Pine trees in the last 40 years have become the predominant vegetation community of this area.”(Otto Leenstra. Condition and Hazard Assessment of Pine Trees at Pines Beach, Shoreham, Prepared for the Shoreham Foreshore Committee. 1999)

     

    In describing the geological formations and scenery of Westernport Bay in his book The Coast of Victoria (Melbourne University Press, 1993:199), geologist Eric Bird uses this particular stand of pinus radiata as a reference point, to describe the beach at Shoreham, “a southfacing sandy beach resumes under The Pines [capitalisation is the author’s], and runs in a gentle curve to Point Leo.”

     

    The Pines act as a landmark for the surfing community who have used this beach since the 1950s and 1960s and were responsible for the promotion of The Pines Beach as a surfing destination. Local and international surfing guides list The Pines as one of Australia and New Zealand’s top surfing spots and The Pines is marked on maps of surfing locations. ( Jeff Toghill. Surfing: The Fundamentals. French’s Forest, NSW, New Holland, 1998:94; Mark Thornley and Veda Dante. Surfing Australia. Hong Kong, Periplus, 1998:136, 142). The surfing community were responsible for the name of The Pines Beach at Shoreham gaining wider recognition.

     

    The Foreshore Committee has expressed a  wish to remove the pines and replace them with native vegetation. About 200 pines have already been removed along the foreshore under the management of the Foreshore Committee.  The question of the removal of the pines has generated considerable protest. Their social value to the community has been demonstrated by the degree of interest in the issue. Two hundred and eighty three (283) written objections to the removal of The Pines and a petition with two hundred and twenty signatories were received by the Shire Council up to 12 November 2001. Five (5) letters of support were received. (Mornington Council Planning Permit Report) It is not known how many of these objections were on heritage grounds, but these figures would suggest that the site has social significance. The permanent population of Shoreham was 251 in 1996 and a recent tourism website quotes a current figure of 380. (Towns in Time: Data: Census statistics for Victoria’s towns and rural areas, (Victoria. Department of Infrastructure.)

    Permit Exemptions

    THE PINES (FORESHORE RESERVE) - Permit Exemptions

    General Exemptions:

    General exemptions apply to all places and objects included in the Victorian Heritage Register (VHR). General exemptions have been designed to allow everyday activities, maintenance and changes to your property, which don’t harm its cultural heritage significance, to proceed without the need to obtain approvals under the Heritage Act 2017.

    Places of worship: In some circumstances, you can alter a place of worship to accommodate religious practices without a permit, but you must notify the Executive Director of Heritage Victoria before you start the works or activities at least 20 business days before the works or activities are to commence.

    Subdivision/consolidation: Permit exemptions exist for some subdivisions and consolidations. If the subdivision or consolidation is in accordance with a planning permit granted under Part 4 of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 and the application for the planning permit was referred to the Executive Director of Heritage Victoria as a determining referral authority, a permit is not required.

    Specific exemptions may also apply to your registered place or object. If applicable, these are listed below. Specific exemptions are tailored to the conservation and management needs of an individual registered place or object and set out works and activities that are exempt from the requirements of a permit. Specific exemptions prevail if they conflict with general exemptions.

    Find out more about heritage permit exemptions here.

    Specific Exemptions:

    General Conditions: 1. All exempted alterations are to be planned and carried out in a manner which prevents damage to the fabric of the registered place or object. General Conditions: 2. Should it become apparent during further inspection or the carrying out of alterations that original or previously hidden or inaccessible details of the place or object are revealed which relate to the significance of the place or object, then the exemption covering such alteration shall cease and the Executive Director shall be notified as soon as possible. General Conditions: 3. If there is a conservation policy and plan approved by the Executive Director, all works shall be in accordance with it. General Conditions: 4. Nothing in this declaration exempts owners or their agents from the responsibility to seek relevant planning or building permits from the responsible authority where applicable.

    Landscape:
    * The process of gardening, mowing, removal of dead plants, disease and weed control (other than pinus radiata), emergency and safety works.
    * The replanting of plant species (Pinus radiata) to conserve the landscape character.
    * Management of trees in accordance with Australian Standard; Pruning of amenity trees AS 4373.
    * Repairs, conservation and maintenance to hard landscape elements, memorial plaques, asphalt and gravel paths and roadways, stone and concrete edging, fences and gates.
    * Road maintenance and safety works within the reserve.
    

    Permit Exemption Policy

    THE PINES (FORESHORE RESERVE) - Permit Exemption Policy

    The purpose of the exemptions is to allow works that do not affect the cultural heritage significance of the place.

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