GROVILLE FOREST, KALKALLO - FARM COMPLEX SITE 1
200 DONNYBROOK ROAD MICKLEHAM, HUME CITY
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Statement of Significance
Data has been updated as a result of the Outer Western Metro Project, Context, March 2010. Site originally recorded as Groville Forest Rural Landscapein 2007 by Andrew Long and Associates as part of the Kalkallo Park, Mickleham: Aboriginal and Historical Cultural Heritage Study.
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GROVILLE FOREST, KALKALLO - FARM COMPLEX SITE 1 - History
The site is situated in the area,within Bank Vale run. William John Turner Clarke, later known as 'Big' Clarke, had taken over in the early 1840s. From 1845 the site appears to have then been part of John Riggs' 'Rocky Water Holes Run' before in February 1852 Sections 24, 25 and 26 in the Parish of Mickleham (of 616, 401 and 349 acres respectively) was purchased from the Crown by Richard Brodie, the largest and longest standing squatter in this area. Brodie sold the property to John Williams, a farmer, in 1852. On the land purchased by the Williams family was a quite dense redgum forest called the 'Groville Forest' which is now completely cleared off the property, although a remnant of this original band of redgum forest can still be seen immediately south of the property, across Donnybrook Road.
Various accounts suggest thatthe sitemay have originated as a Cobb & Co. staging post, as a boundary rider or manager's house or as a police outpost.
Williams died in 1860, leaving the three Crown Sections to each of his three sons:- Section 26 to William, Section 25 to Francis, and Section 24 to John.
The site passed through a series of ownerships at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Around the turn of the century the weatherboard house at the front of the property was built.
During 1940-1 a flax mill was constructed on the property to process the flax grown on the wet parts of the property (known locally as 'the swamp'), and at other local farms for the production of Army tarpaulins during the War. The mill has been demolished.
After the war the property was sold to Mr F.R. Walker, of Euroa who assembled a large landholding in the area which incorporated all three of William's orignal sections into the present Kalkallo Park.
(Derived from Maloney & Johnson 1998)
GROVILLE FOREST, KALKALLO - FARM COMPLEX SITE 1 - Interpretation of Site
The site has previously been recorded as part of a wider 'Groville Forest Rural Landscape' site. This also incorporates the site now recorded as 'Groville Forest, Farm Complex Site 1' together with a third putative domestic site and the series of windbreak alignments across the property. These elements are not considered archaeological in nature and have been ommitted, in favour of recording the two homestead sites seperately.
The main homestead in the site is made up of two parts joined together. The bluestone building on the site, which is constructed of roughly coursed quarried bluestone, would appear to date to the development of the property by the Williams family from 1852, and may have been built c.1858-9. There is a slight possibility that it dates to WJT Clarke's Bank Vale pastoral lease of the 1840s. This structure has been joined, in weatherboard and bluestone, to a weatherboard section to its south, but the basic form of the building has survived.
There is an area of bluestone paving to the north of the house, in what has likely always been a yard area, and another area of paving approximately 100 metres to the east, in an area which was potentially occupied by earlier farm buildings.
Most of the other buildings and plantings in the farmstead would appear to date to the mid 20th century uses of the property, for flax growing during the war, and sheep farming. One of these sheds includes remnant bluestone paving, and has been built over a stockyard or earlier stables. Two small narrow gauged corrugated, or 'ripple' iron sheds are located in the farmstead, and these may be a remnant of the wartime use of the site for flax growing. Nothing survives of the Second World War flax mill.GROVILLE FOREST, KALKALLO - FARM COMPLEX SITE 1 - Archaeological Significance
The site has been continously renovated through the secod half of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century, and it is likely that this activity will have disturbed any earlier deposits within the site. The survival of bluestone paving in a later shed demostrates the potential for other earlier components to exist. There is potential for the survival of archaeological deposits relating to its earliest development, as well as to more recent significant developments such as the war time flax mill.
GROVILLE FOREST, KALKALLO - FARM COMPLEX SITE 1 - Historical Significance
It is significant for its role in the agricultural development of the area, and as an increasingly scarce small rural homestead from an early period.
Heritage Inventory Description
GROVILLE FOREST, KALKALLO - FARM COMPLEX SITE 1 - Heritage Inventory Description
the site of an early, potentially 1850s, farmstead. The altered bluestone house survives. Bluestone paving exists. Later agricultural buildings include mid 20th century corrugated metal sheds.
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GROVILLE FOREST, KALKALLO - FARM COMPLEX SITE 1Victorian Heritage Inventory
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