GLENCAIRN HOMESTEAD SITE
GLENARA DRIVE, BULLA VIC 3428
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Statement of Significance
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GLENCAIRN HOMESTEAD SITE - History
Pastoralist William Coghill overlanded from New South Wales with partner John Stewart Hepburn in 1837. William settled at Glendonald and Glendaruel Stations near Coghills Creek, but in 1844, he obtained a run at Tullamarine and moved to Moonee Ponds Creek, calling the property ‘Cumberland’. In 1846 William was part of a group including A. M. Campbell and G. C. Curlewis who formed the Immigration Society to encourage labourers to the area.
William’s son George Coghill had also become a very large pastoralist in his own right, establishing the Pine Hill run in 1845-56, Pannebonawar 1851-54, and with his brother-in-law, H. M. Simpson, Terrick Terrick in 1854-56. George and his brother David also had pastoral interests in unsold crown land adjacent to Cumberland. Pastoral run files indicate that the Coghills held a licence for a run at Tullamarine from 1844. George was granted Pre-emptive Right to part of this land comprising 448 acres of Section 17B Parish of Tullamarine on 16 December 1848, indicating that he had already undertaken sufficient improvements on the land by this time to qualify for the Pre-emptive Right.
George called the property Glencairn (or sometimes Glencairne). In November 1847, when George married Joan Waldie, he was noted as living at Glencairn, which was then described as being at 'Moonee Ponds'.1 In 1848 he was living at Tullamarine, most likely at the same site.
Glencairn homestead was probably constructed sometime between 1844 and 1851. By September 1852 Coghill was giving his address as 'Glencairn, in the Parish of Tullamarine'. An 1851 mortgage on Section 17B included a requirement to insure all buildings to the amount of £1000. This was not a condition on his 1849 mortgage on the site, suggesting that he may have built on his own property (ie, Glencairn) at about this time and that improvements may have taken place.2 Lennon cites a letter from their cousin Donald dated 1850, mentionsthat George was living about 2 miles south of his parents' Cumberland property, and had a boiling down establishment.3 An article from much later, but relating to a similar period also indicates that Coghill had boiling down facilities on his Glencairn property located ‘just above the Glenara dam’, which could suggest the dam on the deep gully west of the grey box forest, or the smaller dam on the edge of the forest where stone ruins remain.
George Coghill also entered into a partnership with John Pascoe Fawkner in the Freehold Land and Investment Co, for which they jointly purchased crown allotment 13A on 10 December 1850, which extended south to Mansfields Road. On 28 September 1852 they subdivided the property, with the northern 246 acres becoming part of Coghill's Glencairn and the southern 246 acres allocated to Fawkner's co-op. members. By this time Coghill also occupied his father’s 880 acre Cumberland property on the east side of Moonee Ponds Creek.
Fawkner had bought land in the parish of Jika Jika on behalf of members of his land co-operatives at today's Hadfield and East Keilor as well as crown allotment 10 on Tullamarine Island, Allotment 13B south of Mansfields Rd, 13A north of Mansfield's Rd with George Coghill, later partitioned with Fawkner getting the southern half, and section 7, Tullamarine with the part east of Bulla Rd being swapped with John Carre Riddell for the part of section 6 west of Bulla Road.
George Coghill of Glencairn died in 1864.5 The property was sold following his death. The sale notice is fairly comprehensive, stating:
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. At Twelve O'clock. Immediately after the Crown Lands Sale.
800 ACRES.
Valuable Farming and Grazing Property.
GLENCAIRN.
With Substantial Bluestone Dwellinghouse, Boiling Down Establishment, Plant, &c. Situate on the Deep Creek, Within 12 Miles of Melbourne.
The Property of the late George Coghill, Esq. To Farmers, Graziers, Speculators, and Others, GEMMELL, M'CAUL, and Co. have received instructions from the executors of the late George Coghill, Esq., to SELL by AUCTION, at their rooms, 30 Collins-street west, 6th September, at twelve o'clock, that valuable property, situate on the Deep Creek, known as GLENCAIRN, and comprising 800 acres fine AGRICULTURAL AND GRAZING LAND, Securely fenced, and subdivided into paddocks.
The property has a frontage of 64 chains 80 links to The Main Government Road, and also a frontage to the DEEP CREEK, from which there is a never-failing supply of water.
The Dwelling house is built of bluestone, and contains six rooms, kitchen, servants-room, men's hut. Also, Very commodious bluestone stables, cart sheds, storehouse, and salting-room. The Garden is well stocked with choice fruit-trees, and securely fenced by a stone wall.
There is also erected on the property a boiling-down house and stock-yard, within one mile of the dwelling house Though Boiling-down Plant, In complete working order, consisting of steam boilers, ironsteam vats, force pump, coolers, wooden vats, weights, and scales.
The auctioneers, in calling attention to this valuable property, would remind intending purchasers that as grazing-paddock for stock such an opportunity as the present is seldom met with. The distance from town is only 12 miles, and the property is well timbered, and has a never falling supply of water. There is also abundance of splendid bluestone and granite, and valuable deposits of kaolin. Title perfect.
Terms-cash.
Orders for Inspecting the property can be had from the auctioneers.
The land sale was preceded by a clearing sale that indicates the boiling down was evidently still underway at the time of Coghill’s death, but the fact that manure waste from the process was to be sold.
THURSDAY, JULY 7.
Important Sale of Stock. Farming Implements, &c.
DALMAHOY CAMPBELL and Co. have received Instructions from the executors of the late George Coghill, Esq., to SELL by PUBLIC AUCTION, at Glencairn, Bulla Bulla, 14 miles from Melbourne, on the Deep Creek road, on Thursday, the 7th July, at twelve o'clock.
Without reserve, The whole of the livestock, farming Implements, &c., consisting of 12 well-bred milking cows, 17 well-bred heifers, 6 calves, and 1 pure bull (by Buckingham), 26 horses, broken and unbroken; 150 pigs, 40 of which are superior breeding sows. Drays, ploughs, harrows, rollers, scarifier, bullock yokes, bows and chains, weights, scales, about 1 ton salt beef and 15 tons salt, &c., and a large lot of valuable manure (boiling-down refuse), and sundries too numerous to mention.
Terms at Sale.
Gross describes how many squatters looked to tallow to tide them over during the slumps when marketing wool was unprofitable.
Sheep which might have cost guineas per head had to be sold for pence, often 1/- to 1/6. Boiled down, an old ewe could yield up to 30 lbs., and tallow sold at 3d. per lb. It was a desperate expedient described as destroying the principal” but the reasoning was clear, especially as the wool, skin and bones could also be converted to cash. There were seasons when boiling down was resorted to at Glenara.
The Glencairn Cottage was listed as part of Glenara Estate in a sale advertisement from 1887. Also listed about a mile distant, was ‘… a spacious woolshed and eight-roomed stone Cottage, situated In the Glencairn paddock, which is famed throughout the district for its fattening qualities” (Auction notice, 1887, p. 3).
By the 1890s, Glencairn was part of the Glenara Estate of Alister Clark and a dam on the deep gully to the west of the boiling-down works was described as a sheepwash (Plate 1). George Fordham Andrews Snr and Emma (nee Tollard) resided at Glencairn in the early twentieth century, their daughter Florence Annie Eliza marrying neighbour Walter Mansfield and residing in the nearby Glenalice farm, and George Fordham’s brother William James Andrews marrying Elizabeth Kate Grant in 1900. The Grants lived on Craigllachie directly across Deep Creek from Glencairn. George and Emma’s residence was given as "Glenara" in the 1931 Golden Wedding but it is doubtful that they were living with Alister Clark in the Glenara mansion.GLENCAIRN HOMESTEAD SITE - Interpretation of Site
The structure is typical of med 19th century bluestone homesteads, and given the evidence of the land purchase and early maps is almost certainly Coghill’s Glencairn homestead. As the place was occupied early, appears to have been abandoned in the early twentieth century, and has substantial building structure remaining on site, it is likely to contain substantial archaeological remains. Evidence of a potential cellar and cistern and possible outbuildings in the area add to its value.
Heritage Inventory Description
GLENCAIRN HOMESTEAD SITE - Heritage Inventory Description
George Coghill built his Glencairn homestead in about 1850 on a risee overlooking the Jackson’s Creek Valley about 600 metres to the north west of his boiling down works 500 metres east of Deep Creek and 1200 metres south of the Bulla Road. The ruin stand to about a metre high, constructed of rubble basalt random coursed masonry with mud mortar, comprising partial walls of a several room house measuring about 8 by 13 metres. A large amount of fallen masonry is scattered around the site and a possible cellar is located about 10 m to the north. A possible cistern is about 20m to the south east. Large mature exotic trees from the former garden surround the building. Glencairn Homestead was previously erroneously identified to the east in the airport land, (GLENCAIRNE HOMESTEAD, HERMES Number 8840, VHI Number H7822-0200) but this site has recently been demonstrated through archaeological excavation to be the site of George Coghill’s late 1840s boiling down works.
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