In these strange times of lock down I took Shanks’ Pony and headed out and about for some exercise. When I was out, I came across a number of things I thought I’d share.
I headed west from Newtown, my plan was to take a good look at where the cement works used to be. “Used to be” you say? Yes. They are gone. They have been demolished over the past months and are now completely gone. More on that later.
Stephen Street
Crossing Shannon Avenue I made my way up Stephen Street. This street has a number of heritage listings and overlays and as chance may have it, I’ve come across this street in my past research for two completely different reasons now.
First, when researching for both Gold on Mercer’s Hill and then Major Mercer I came across a Gentleman named George Alexander Stephen. George Stephen was born on 7 June 1815 in England where he was baptised at the Swallow Street Scotch Church in Westminster. He married Emily Johnstone in England on 29 July 1848.
Not long after this, George and Emily made the journey to Port Phillip and settled in Geelong in late 1849 in the village of Little Scotland (now part of Geelong West.) George forged for himself a successful career in mercantile pursuits joining Charles Swanston and Edward Willis to form the firm of Swanston Willis and Stephen who operated as shipping merchants in Geelong.
As most of the early pioneers were, George was also civic minded playing a founding role as a trustee in the establishment of All Saints Church in Newtown as well as St Paul’s in Geelong. He was the secretary of Geelong Benefit Building and Savings Investment Society, was involved in the cutting of the Bar across Geelong Harbour, and with the Geelong Protestant Orphanage. He was also key in the establishment of the Corio Club and was its inaugural honorary treasurer.
George Alexander Stephen died at his home on the street named after him, Stephen Street, in Newtown on 13 May 1908. His funeral party departed his Newtown home on 14 May for Geelong Eastern Cemetery where he was buried. As a show of the respect for him, there was a “large and representative gathering.” (1)
In a service conducted at All Saints Church later in the week, George Alexander Stephen was paid tribute. “But all who have known George Alexander Stephen well unite in the opinion that he was a man of unswerving Christian character, whose word was his bond, whose strength of will could not be over-estimated, and whose practical benevolence extended itself through church, parish, and diocese, benefiting the community and giving men an example of real goodness which should not be soon forgotten.” (2)
The following year, 1909, a tablet was unveiled in memory of George Alexander Stephen at All Saints Church, Newtown where it still remains today.
Second, and as some will know, I have project on racecourses in the works. While looking at some history of racing and sports in Geelong I again came across Stephen Street and the immediate area. I’ll add here for what follows that the Shearer’s Arms Hotel was on Aberdeen Street, the building is still there at #202. (See later.)
The area where we now find Stephen Street was originally known as the Digby Estate and it was described as being “situated on the rising ground immediately above the Shearer’s Arms, and opposite the mansion of Joseph Lewis, Esq.”(3) Lewis the former publican at the Shearers’ Arms had built ‘Woolmers’ near the Shearer’s Arms. The house, originally including 4 acres of surrounding land still stands at 15 Stephen Street and is now known as Newtown Brae.
You can’t see it well from the street but as the Heritage Database photos show it is quite an impressive building hidden away in there.
(1) “OBITUARY." Geelong Advertiser (Vic. : 1859 - 1926) 15 May 1908: 4. Web. 6 Jun 2016 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article148919972>.
(2) “THE LATE MR G. A' STEPHEN" Geelong Advertiser (Vic. : 1859 - 1926) 18 May 1908: 3. Web. 3 Jun 2016 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article148920371>.
(3) "Advertising" Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer (Vic. : 1851 - 1856) 21 December 1852: 3 (DAILY.). Web. 2 Dec 2017 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article94362333>.
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The Heights (140 Aphrasia Street)
Technically you find the The Heights at 140 Aphrasia Street. It sits on the corner of Ruthven Street and Aphrasia Street/Queens Park Road and overlooks Queens Park and quite fittingly the Western districts. It’s a large property, over 1 hectare in size, with a number of 19th century buildings in a landscaped setting.
The buildings include a partially prefabricated timber residence, stables complex (stables, coach house, dovecote and groom's cottage), water tower, and timber outbuildings. The prefabricated portion of the house was made to order in Germany and was constructed on the site in 1854 as a 14 roomed house for Charles Ibbotson, a well-known Geelong businessman. He was a merchant, woolbroker and pastoralist who was born in Derbyshire, England, the son of Samuel Ibbotson, a farmer. He migrated in the early 1830s to Sydney where he gained mercantile experience before moving on to Geelong soon after 1850. He was appointed colonial manager-partner to F.G. Dalgety whose business became world-wide, after initially dealing with squatters' needs and produce.
The house has been substantially modified several times and only minor portions of the original framing and cladding remain. The house was owned by the same family, the Whytes, until it was bequeathed to the National Trust of Australia in 1975.
The gardens at The Heights are an early surviving, reasonably intact example of a large urban 19th century villa garden and form a fitting landscape setting. The establishment is indicative of the lifestyles of affluent residents of the 19th century, with its complex of buildings, iron entry gates, back of house retaining wall, service drive retaining wall, rose arbour, formal garden bed layouts, paths and carriage drive, pond, fountain and paving circle, major exotic trees, understorey shrubs and box hedging.
The timber stables with gable roof forms and dormer windows appear to have been designed by the architects Prowse and Snell and were built in 1855. The stables are largely intact apart from some alterations to allow vehicular access. The groom's cottage was built in 1856-57 having tuck pointed ashlar basalt and dressed freestone quoining, and is in good condition and high integrity. The water tower, directly behind the main house, was constructed in c.1860. It is a unique structure of four levels (three above ground level) and is constructed of stone and timber. The water tower remains substantially intact with decorative timber detailing to the lookout tower, although the timber access stair to the lookout is no longer in place. The single storey bluestone stables complex is substantially intact and was constructed in 1862, probably to a design by the Geelong architect and surveyor, Joseph Shaw. The adjacent basalt and timber dovecote appears to have been constructed in the late 19th century and it is also largely intact, including the detailing of the nesting boxes within.
Like most things it’s closed right now but in better times it is open to the public.
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Newtown Lookout
Next stop on my tour was the little-known lookout at the very end of Aberdeen Street as it works its way west, just as it turns into the Hamilton Highway / Deviation Road. The lookout has been there for years, since 1938 it seems. I vividly recall standing there looking out over Queens Park with the Barwon River heavily in flood when I was still at school, probably in the late 1970s.
The Victorian Heritage Database elaborates that it dates back to 1938 and describes it as:
'A reinforced concrete, cantilevered panel, freeform lookout with a roughcast finish to the vertical faces and a cantilevered wrought iron balustrade.' In his first book Victorian Modern, in 1947, the young Robin Boyd eulogises "High above the Barwon River Plains", where the road twists at the deviation, a double mushroom by Buchan, Laird amp Buchan in 1938 sprouts for a lookout and a Geelong showplace.
The first floor has inset coloured concrete, defined by brass edge strips as a compass motif. Mussolini-like, the Roman cypresses form an appropriate backdrop.'
I’m not sure about the Mussolini-like cypresses, and the brass edge strips appear to be gone as well. Needless to say, the view remains pretty good. Far more houses in it than there used to be.
And while I was here, I couldn’t help but notice that the mile marker is still safely across the road. See my earlier post for more on this. https://chrisganly.wixsite.com/author/post/2018/03/14/mile-markers
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Raith (Raith Terrace)
Raith, on Raith Terrace, was next. I’ve known about Raith for quite some time because of a doctor and then a famous Geelong sporting identity who lived there. Yes, the Geelong Flyer, Bobby Davis lived at Raith for some time.
It seems that “Raith” wasn’t always the name. It was once called “Malloona” and then “Atlantis Heights.” According to the Heritage Database it was “erected in stages, firstly as a modest dwelling house designed by Snell and Prowse, Architects, in 1864, for Frederic Bauer, local importer and merchant. In 1881, Joseph Watt designed extensive alterations and additions including an encircling iron verandah for J. H. Grey, partners in the firm of Taylor, Buckland and Gates, solicitors and nine times Mayor of Newtown and Chilwell. The polychromatic brick building asymmetrically planned and with distinctive iron verandah, is an important late 19th century villa in the Geelong region with interesting historical associations.”
I ride past here a lot on my way north out of Geelong and have watched in recent times that it’s been substantially and very sympathetically renovated. I note that right now part of the large allotment, where the tennis court used to be to the North, has been cleared, subdivided and is currently for sale.
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Protestant Orphanage and Common School (McCurdy Road)
Pretty much at the beginning of McCurdy Road (South end), next to the Geelong Cement Bowls Club, we find two large buildings. The one on the left is the former Geelong Orphanage and the one on the right was the Common School.
The Orphanage is a two-storey bluestone building with sandstone trim, built in 1855 in the Scottish style. Given its history as a very early social institution of the Geelong district it is an important building. It was constructed in 1855 as the result of an architectural competition to designs submitted by Geelong architect Andrew McWilliams. The Common School was built in 1865 to designs by architect Joseph Lowe Shaw.
The Orphanage and School closed in 1933 when they moved to Glastonbury in Belmont. Interestingly there was some suggestion a little earlier than this that they might relocate to the Eastern Gardens, but that’s a story for another day.
Just last year both buildings were sold to a private buyer. There has been very little activity on site so it’s not obvious just yet what is planned for the buildings. They are clearly already subdividing behind the buildings, stretching around and towards the former cement works site.
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The (former) Cement Works (McCurdy Road)
Yes, they are gone. They’ve been feverishly demolishing them for some months now and have completed the job. The heavy earth moving equipment is in there and they are clearly looking to sub-divide in some way.
Looking across at the site from the south, as you come down Scenic Road, the site is pretty much unrecognisable. My grandparents used to live in McCurdy Road, further north than the cement works, closer to Church Street. But my memories of the area are very strong. I recall the cement dust on rooftops and on the footpaths, so much so that when it rained it was very slippery. I also remember the trucks and especially the trains that used to run in and out of there, passing just near my grandparents' house, and that we always tried to get the driver to blow the horn. I also remember walking with Pa in the fields in Fyansford, underneath the conveyor belt that used to run bringing the limestone to the plant. You can still see some of it from the Ring Road in the paddock to the West. What I never saw but know was there was the cement works own train that used to bring the limestone to the plant and the tunnel that they had dug to allow the train to get there. It’s all long gone now.
So, another chapter of Geelong history closes. This one’s for the best though, as despite family links to the construction of the plant, it was an eyesore. I’ll watch with interest what transpires up there on the hill.
I note here for those like me interested in these things, that the Orphanage and Cement Works were actually both in the Township of Fyansford. That McCurdy Road in this location was the boundary to Newtown and Chilwell, and the rest of the Parish of Moorpanyal.
Wimmera / Tamar (356 Aberdeen Street)
The next discovery on my pony was news to me. Hidden away behind a fence at 356 Aberdeen Street is a house known as “Wimmera House”, once known as “Tamar.” Apparently, it was built for John Honeychurch Down in 1858-60. The architects, Backhouse & Reynolds designed this Italinate style, 2 storied masonry residence using restrained motifs derived from Victorian era pattern books. The house was renamed 'Wimmera House' by William H. Lloyd, a former Wimmera district miller who acquired the house in 1883.
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The Shearer’s Arms (202 Aberdeen Street)
So I couldn’t help but trek past the former hotel I mentioned in relation to Stephen Street. It was on my way back home anyway.
John Day purchased the land in early 1847 and soon after obtained a publican's general licence. Day opened his hotel in July 1847 but the first mention of any aspect of the building occurred in 1849 when the then licensee Joseph Lewis was required to provide an additional bedroom. The licence changed hands several times in the early years.
Despite its altered form, the Shearer’s Arms is historical importance as a rare surviving example of a pre-gold rush hotel. It is one of the oldest buildings in Victoria and probably predates the Harp Inn of c.1848 in Geelong West. As you will see in the photo, nowadays it’s an art gallery and has been for as long as I can remember.
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Home now, time to put my feet up.
Have fun out there and as usual, and when you can, keep your eyes open you never know what you’ll find.
Cheers and stay safe.
CG
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