What's on the For Sale sign?

Historic property Kout Narin is for sale. An interesting aspect is the variant spellings of Kout Narin, from - Koot Narin, Koot Nareen, Kout Norien, Court Nahring, and the homestead area as Second Kout Narin.

The homestead in 1980, from the National Trust

Kout Narin on the banks of the Glenelg River near Harrow was originally taken up in 1840 by Thomas Norris as a 400,000 acre pastoral run. This was one of the largest of the early pastoral holdings in the colony at Port Phillip.

Edward Willis & Charles Lambert Swanston (Charles’ father and Edward’s father-in-law was Captain Charles Swanston a colonial merchant and banker after whom Swanston Street in Melbourne was named) acquired Kout Narin station in October 1846 as ‘The Glenelg River Grazing Company’. Later in April 1848 they subdivided it into Kout Narin and Kadnook. (Kadnook was subdivided into Kadnook and Buckle Kupple in August 1857, then Kadnook further broken up into Kadnook and Tallangour in August 1864, Tallangour was divided into Tallangour and Lake Paddock in April 1874.) Kout Narin was further subdivided in September 1852 into Chetwynd and Pigeon Ponds (Moree) and again in September 1859 divided into Chetwynd, Mooree (or Pigeon Ponds), Koolomurt and Wellat(t). Willis and Swanston retained a part known as Koolomurt in 1859. Swanston kept Mooree in 1859. At Koolomurt, Willis formed one of the finest merino studs in Victoria. 

The Woolshed above Salt Creek, 1974 from SLV

Second Kout Narin was part of the original Rickett’s Run or Longlands. It was first occupied in April 1840 as ‘The Glenelg Sheep Establishment’. Thomas Rickett occupied it from 1843. Ricketts Run was broken up into Clunie, Longlands and Second Kout Narin. Second Kout Narin was on the right bank of the Glenelg. A two-room slab house with a shingle roof was erected in 1846.

The original slab cottage in 1980, from the National Trust

 In 1855 Richard Brown Broughton leased Kout Narin Station from Thomas Hamilton, where he subsequently erected the woolshed and the colonial homestead, integrating the early stone house of c1848. Broughton got the freehold for the Second Kout Narin property in June 1863. He changed the name from Kout Narin to Kout Norien.

From the curving driveway towards the rectangular house with a shallow flight of steps leading up to verandah, past garden beds, taken by an unknown photographer some time during the 1960s, copyright is undetermined, from SLV

 The early colonial style rectangular plan homestead of brick and stone with distinctive roof form, glazed verandah and colonial regency details was built in 1855 with the second storey portion added at a later date. The stone was quarried on the property. The homestead was placed on the Victorian Heritage Register in 1959, and the outbuildings added in 1980.

The stone-rubble stables with latticed openings, 1980 from the National Trust

The stone-rubble cookhouse, 1980 from the National Trust

Enclosed homestead verandah

   
The associated outbuildings, slab hut and slab woolshed, form an important pastoral station group, and are examples of early vernacular construction methods.

The following set of photographs was taken by John Collins in the 1970s, and are from the J.T. Collins Collection, La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria.

The homestead

The homestead showing the quoins around the doors

The timber slab woolshed and its split picket sheep yards with the pickets wired together. Although dilapidated the woolshed is still in use.

The stone-rubble cookhouse and adjacent meat-house

Kout Narin is to be auctioned on Friday 12th September in Hamilton and is expected to reach $1.3-1.5 million.

Wimmera stories launch

Eleanor & Paula admire the displays

Three stories relating to the Wimmera region were launched at an event in Murtoa on Saturday.

The launch was part of the Murtoa Lions Club's Afternoon Tea function - a high tea to celebrate the beauty of years gone by, where guests were invited to come dressed in the vintage theme.

There were also lessons on correct dinner-table etiquette, antique appraisals and displays of object d'art, family handicrafts and heirlooms.

A cooperative venture with Culture Victoria, Heritage Victoria and the Library, the stories are now live on the Culture Victoria site.

Culture Victoria is an organisation dedicated to digitising and making available our cultural assets. The Culture Victoria site provides access to Victorian cultural collections through stories that showcase the richness and diversity of Victoria, and via a collections search facility across the websites and databases of Victorian acquisitive organisations and collections.

Malcolm editing the story images

Documentary film-maker Malcolm McKinnon, has been working with the local organisations involved with each story, creating a number of still photographs and short video, to be coupled with historic images to produce social histories on the local environment.

More on each story in the following posts.

 

Horsham heritage study

Droylsen

Stage one of Horsham’s Heritage Study has been released all 167 pages of it.

Consultants Grieve Gillett were commissioned by the Horsham Rural City Council and Heritage Victoria to prepare a list of places of potential heritage significance.

The team met with residents and groups to identify places, and traveled throughout the municipality to locate and evaluate the suggested sites. There is also a history of the settlement of the area.

Horsham Memorial Swimming Pool

The list of over 500 potential places of local heritage value will be prioritised in Stage two, and the cultural heritage significance of these individual places and precincts will inform decisions on future heritage planning controls.

The Mechanics Institute building

A copy of the Study is available to view at the Horsham Branch of the Wimmera Regional Library, and at NC2 (the old Arapiles Shire building) and the Planning Department of Horsham Rural City.

Wesley Performing Arts Centre

Heritage on our home turf

A great new innovation is Vic Heritage’s iphone app.

Showcasing data from the Victorian Heritage database, it provides a definitive history of over 2,200 important significant and unusual places in Melbourne and regional Victoria.

It accesses a fully searchable online database containing information about Victorian Heritage Places and Precincts, including statements of significance, physical descriptions, historical information, builder, architectural style, photographs and a google-style map. You can choose to search via the normal search term, or much more fun is to search by places ‘nearby’ – you might think you know your local area, but may be surprised by what is included. It displays as either a List with thumbnail photos, or as a Map with the locations as pins.

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The classroom from the south

I was surprised to see “Pavilon Classroom - Natimuk” on the list. I had heard of the canvas sided schools, but was unaware one was at Natimuk (so was an ex-Natimuk teacher too).

The Natimuk Pavilion Classroom was constructed by the Victorian Public Works Department in 1914 as an open air classroom for school children at Natimuk Primary School. It consisted of a rectangular timber structure 20’ x 30’ with a gabled roof. 

The canvas side of the classroom

The room was intended to accommodate 48 children in dual seater desks. Three sides of the classroom are boarded with weatherboards to the height of three feet; above that height, adjustable canvas shutters were fitted right to the roofline. The back wall, on which the blackboard was mounted, was boarded from floor to ceiling. The room was built on sleeper plates for easy removal.

The remains of the canvas still adhere to the window frames

44 of these classrooms were constructed for Victorian schools between 1911 and 1914, but after World War I, the Education Department discontinued their construction. They were unpopular with teachers in winter weather. However they were used for additional accommodation in schools for many years.

Natimuk Primary School moved from Main Street to a site in Jory Street in 1961. The pavilion classroom was relocated by the Education Department to the Australian House Museum at Deakin University in 1988, because it was under threat. The building was returned to Natimuk in 2002 and is now located in the grounds of the present Natimuk Primary School in Jory Street.

Windows to the north, and canvas on the east

Open air classrooms were designed to provide a healthy environment for delicate children, and resulted from the hygiene movement in education at the beginning of the 20^th century. It was hoped that improvements in lighting and ventilation aimed at improving the child’s physical conditions would lead to better educational and health outcomes. The open air classroom reflected the preoccupation with the benefits of light and fresh air for the health and education of young children.

The ventilator near the ceiling could be slid closed, the one on the previous photo is closed

Medical opinion of the time favoured fresh air and a bracing environment for all, derived from the ideas behind the open air sanatoriums used for the treatment of tuberculosis patients. The spread of tuberculosis, known as the 'white plague’ was a constant concern, it was responsible for one death in nine in Victoria in 1902, and in 1904 was declared a notifiable disease.

This classroom is architecturally significant, as the only surviving, relatively intact and rare example of an open air classroom.