What happened...

Longerenong Homestead, when it was owned by Donna in 2010

"What happened to the camels of the Burke & Wills Expedition?" is the title of an article by Donna Bourke published in the Public Record Office Victoria's 'Provenance' magazine Issue 9.

From the homestead verandah overlooking the gardens, 2010

While she owned Longerenong Homestead, Donna Bourke became intrigued by the story of the camels that survived the expeditions of Burke and Wills, after discovering there was a link to Longerenong and Samuel Wilson.

Copy of Eugene von Guerard sketches of Longerenong c1868

The full article story is available online at the PROV's site and it includes a number of William Strutt's images.
There is more information on the camels during the Expedition at the Burke & Wills research archive and on the camels at Burke & Wills: Have camels will travel
For information on the expedition, check out the State Library of Victoria's Dig page

Cameler Dost Mahomet's grave near Menindee in N.S.W. >>

 Dost was a member of the Expedition's Depot Party, and afterwards stayed at Menindee to care for the sick camels

Wot's in a name

What is in a name, its spelling, its pronuncation or its meaning, and how do these change over time?

The original gateway to North Brighton (the posts are over 5' high)

While out touring on the weekend there was some lively discussion as we drove along Mokepilly Road near Kewell - on how it was the same spelling as the other Mokepilly near Stawell.

Sure that it was Muck rather than Moke originally, I couldn't let it rest, so cranked up the PC to check out the Duffy map (PROVs online version of The 1862 Duffy Land Act map) fairly sure it included Muckpilly as an out-station of the Kewell Station. I was half right, the out station was "Muckbilly". 
Kewell Station was named as "Kewell or Muckbilly" and "Kewell & Muckbilly", it was settled by the Wilson brothers John & Alexander in April 1845.
And in fact the Mokepilly of Lexington Station is also spelt Mokepille in some sources.

The other bone of contention was the correct pronunciation of Darlot (of James Monckton Darlot fame) was it the French "dar-low" as with Darlot Swamp or the more common vernacular "dar-lot" as with Darlot Street. I think it is the old-timers who like to use some class and refer to the original dar-low while the lazier Aussie speech is sounding more a chopped-off dar-let.
Darlot settled Brighton with Archibald McLachlan in July 1843. It was subdivided into North and South Brighton in 1859.
The tour included a number of historically significant sites - the Kewell area, the entrance to North Brighton, and the remains of the Dooen Weir on the Wimmera River. 

Looking downstream of the Dooen Weir

Stately homes too

When I was trawling the Net for information on the Bishop's Palace, I came across a reference to the sale of the historic Ercildoune.
Thomas Livingstone-Learmonth (1783-1869), a strict Presbyterian, was a merchant in Edinburgh, Scotland who made a great deal of money in the service of the British East India Company. Thomas was a merchant in Hobart, Tasmania in 1835 with his four sons John, Thomas Jnr., Somerville and Andrew. Thomas and Somerville were still in their teens when they were sent by their father to Victoria to find suitable sheep farming land. Leaders in the pastoral settlement of the Port Phillip district, they first settled at the head of the Barwon River, Geelong, and then at Buninyong followed by Burrumbeet in 1838. In 1849 Ercildoun was licensed in the names of John, Thomas Junior and Somerville. Erection of the house started in 1840 and additions added until it was finally completed in 1858-59.

The home and gardens from the air

Ercildoun became one of the more famous stately properties in rural Victoria. The Scottish baronial homestead with gabled wings and crow stepped and castellated parapets, was built of granite hewn from the slopes of Mount Ercildoun and handmade bricks from a kiln on the property.

Set on 73 hectares the two-storey homestead comprises nine bedrooms and three bathrooms, and features a ballroom and a library. A self-contained three-bedroom residence in the former maid's quarters is at the rear of the homestead. 22 houses were built on the property for 64 men and their families with its own school and gaol.

The Learmonths were also outstanding gardeners and created a network of paths and cultivated garden beds including oaks, elms, poplars, chestnuts and plane trees in pots brought from Scotland. They were leaders in the use of machinery with threshing and winnowing machines and had a flour mill powered by a water-mill which ground their wheat.

The main door with the 1838 keystone

The Learmonth family history dates back to the 13^th century. Ercildoune has a copy of the tower or keep situated in the Borders region of Scotland to the west of the homestead. They apparently brought back to Ercildoun a stone from this keep and it was inscribed and placed in to the replica built here: ‘Stone from Rhymer’s Tower at Earlston, Scotland, occupied in the 13th century by Thomas the Rhymer’ whose direct line is Mary Livingstone a favourite maid of Mary Queen of Scots and the African explorer.

Thomas eventually married and sadly a daughter died at only a few weeks of age in 1858 and she is buried in the Ercildoun Cemetery that closed for interments in 1895.

In 1873 the Learmonths sold the station to Sir Samuel Wilson on a walk-in walk-out basis. Sir Samuel with his brothers - John and Charles, had bought Longerenong in 1856. He created an irrigation system that became the forerunner of today’s Mallee-Wimmera water gravitation scheme. He established a Sambar deer park on Mount Ercildoune and released chital deer into the Wimmera in the 1860’s from his Longerenong property.

The ballroom with the balcony in the ceiling

The ballroom's balcony

Sir Samuel also added the letter ‘e’ to Ercildoune because he wanted an even number of letters on his gates. The garden was extended to 40 acres and the impressive 1 mile long carriage way planted out with pine trees. He built a 1 acre 10’ high walled garden modelled on similar gardens in England for the cultivation of tender plants and vegetables and built a massive glass curvilinear conservatory that unfortunately is no longer in existence. He may have added the back wing to the homestead, and is believed to have built the Gothic style Manager’s House above the lake. At the height of his residency there were 125 people employed including 13 gardeners.

A section of the walled gardens

Dame Nellie Melba leased Ercildoune in 1907 and had a tennis court built for her use.

Sir Alan Currie bought Ercildoune from the Estate of Sir Samuel in 1920-21., and Lady Currie carried on the property after Major Currie died in 1942, until she too passed away on 1962.

John and Christine Dever from Melbourne purchased the property in 1999, restored it and were looking to sell it for about $4 million in May this year.
(Historical information & photographs from the Ercildoune website) 

Longerenong in print

The book "Longerenong Homestead : 150 years and beyond : 1862-2012" was launched in Murtoa with an exhibition of art and photography by Susan Devlin.

The foundation stone

In 1844, the land was first settled by Dugald McPherson and William Taylor, and in 1848 subdivided into Ashens (McPherson) and Longerenong (Taylor), then in 1856 it was leased to the Wilson brothers (Alexander, Charles, John & Samuel) who had been in occupation. Various Wilsons held the property until 1874 when the licence was transferred to Austin & Bullivant. The pastoral licence was cancelled in 1884. Other families with long associations with Longerenong were the Delahuntys who bought the estate in 1924, it was then purchased by the Gregorys in 1920 who held it until 2002. Longerenong is currently owned by Donna Bourke and Ian Pausacker.

The stained glass above the staircase

It was Samuel Wilson who had the grand homestead built in 1862. There is Australian cedar throughout, a slate roof, marble floor tiles and fireplaces. The grand divided staircase of carved cedar is surmounted by a  stained glass skylight which has a coat of arms with the kangaroo and emu back-to-back.

The book covers both the Longernong homestead and pastoral run, as well as the township of Longerenong. It contains a variety of information about the homestead from the floor plan and diary excerpts, to flood & drought, and entries from Davey's Longerenong Store book. It is interesting to see photographs of the history of changes to homestead through the years (the earliest is from 1863).