FORMER GOORAMADDA TOWNSHIP

GOORAMADDA ROAD GOORAMADDA, INDIGO SHIRE

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Victorian Heritage Inventory

Statement of Significance

• Additional Place Information

  • History

    FORMER GOORAMADDA TOWNSHIP - History

    Heritage study GOOR018 (Freeman 1999:42) indicates that the town was surveyed in 1857 by Smyth and Darbyshire. The town appears on Everett's 1868 map of Indigo, Chiltern and Wahgunyah.

    According to the Rootsweb website:

    Approximate Location:10km ENE of Rutherglen.

    Comments:Also name of a local station taken up in 1839. The township was surveyed in 1864 and proclaimed in 1880.

    Schools:The Catholic Church opened a school (#875) in 1866 and it closed in 1870.
    SS1948 Mount Ochtertyre opened in 1877. The school's name was changed to Gooramadda in 1888. The school closed in mid 1903, re-opened in late 1904 and finally closed in 1938.

    http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~surreal/AVNE/Towns/towns-indigo.html#gooramadda

    Lloyd and Kennedy (2007:8 and 9) note that the location was:

    ...first settled by overlanders from New South Wales between 1841 and 1843. In 1855 it was owned by Brown and Clarke who built the first homestead, named Old Lagoon hut, on Indigo Creek (Lloyd and Kennedy 2007:110).

    By 1879 at least some of Brown's land was owned by Mr JC Boyd. Further history detailed that:

    Docker did not long have the whole Ovens and Murray district to himself. Nor long after him came two partners, Brown and Clark, who squatted on the Murray River, on Gooramadda Station. The name Gooramadda was applied by the natives to the reed beds on the river flats. The homestead was not on the present site at first, but nearer the Indigo Creek, which then formed the eastern boundary of the run. The two partners, Brown and Clark, married daughters of the Rev J. Docker, Mary, the eldest daughter, becoming Mrs Clark, while her next sister, Sarah Josephine, became the wife of James Lindsay Brown.

    Just outside the town proper were North's Hibernian Hotel, not far from the Hibernian Lead, and about the junction of Ready-street and Springs Road, and Brown's John Bull Hotel, lower down the same lead, but on the Chiltern Road, nearly opposite the remains of the present Chinese Camp.

    (Neuss 1914, http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/vicpamphlets/1/4/3/pdf/vp1437.pdf)

    The Brown referred to is the ancestor to the Brown Brothers, one of the most prominent of Victoria's early vignerons. Other references mainly relate to the GOORAMADDA POLICE SITE, located on the Murray. According to TourismInternet (http://www.albury.net.au/~tim/ruthcamp.htm):

    The Police Paddocks is actually an Island of 100 acres used to spell the police horses in the 1880's. It was connected to the mainland by a private bridge over Murphys Creek which is an annabranch of the Murray River. It is now part of the Gooramadda State Forest.

    The Paddocks land was temporarily reserved in 1887 (29 December 1887, Victoria Police Gazette, p. 366).

    Interpretation of Site

    FORMER GOORAMADDA TOWNSHIP - Interpretation of Site

    While the township of Gooramadda was the location of an early run and possibly schools, churches and businesses, no archaeological remains have been identified at present other than the location of the Police Paddocks and the Gooramadda School House. The latter has been sign posted by the Shire.

    Archaeological Significance

    FORMER GOORAMADDA TOWNSHIP - Archaeological Significance

    The location of the former township of Gooramadda, gazetted in the 1860s, and that of the Gooramadda Run are relatively undeveloped and unsurveyed for archaeological remains. Most buildings, including the school, no longer stand and therefore the location retains the potential for archaeology; including the remains of one of the earliest homesteads in the region.

    Historical Significance

    FORMER GOORAMADDA TOWNSHIP - Historical Significance

    Gooramadda is of regional importance as the location of the early Gooramadda Run, first settled by the forerunners of some of Victoria's most prominent families - Brown and Clarke - and the location of one of the earliest homesteads in the region.

    Heritage Inventory Description

    FORMER GOORAMADDA TOWNSHIP - Heritage Inventory Description

    Location of the original township of Gooramadda. According to Chiltern Athenaeum, the former township of Gooramadda is located within the recreational reserve just beyond the bridge to NSW. The location also comprises features well known locally such as the Police Paddocks (1880s) and Gooramadda State School #875 (1866-1870).
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  • FORMER GOORAMADDA TOWNSHIP

    

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  Tours involving this place See all tours

  Murray River Shipping & Rail

  09/04/18

  Yarrawonga Railway Station - Former Customs House - Former Howlong Truss Bridge - MURRAY RIVER BRIDGE, HOWLONG - FORMER GOORAMADDA TOWNSHIP - GREAT SOUTHERN AND PRENTICE MINE SITE - Wodonga Creek Stock Bridge - OLD BARNAWARTHA SAWMILL SITE