Mountain Tales: Issue 04

MOUNTAIN TALES 024 Old News from the Dandenong Ranges May 2025 No.4 The Mount Dandenong & District Historical Society aims to collect, preserve and share the rich history of the district. The society is especially interested in the communities of Mount Dandenong, Kalorama, Olinda, Sassafras, Ferny Creek and Tremont. These are the ridgetop villages on the mountain range clearly visible from metropolitan Melbourne. The society welcomes new members with an interest in local history and meets each month. It maintains a small collection of significant local history material. We have some limited volunteer capacity to assist with private research. Many of the stories here have previously appeared on the society’s Facebook page. If you would like to learn more, please contact the society’s Secretary via email at mtddhs@gmail.com Showing signs of age … by the 1940s, this grand house was already starting to fray at the edges. This image of Bella Vista in Olinda is taken from another Rose Series postcard held by the State Library of Victoria. Picture Caption: To make your document look professionally produced, Word provides header, footer, cover page, and text box designs that complement each other. Bella Vista in the snow … photos of the guesthouse were often taken from the tennis court, capturing both the original building to the right and an extension and lookout to the left. (SLV collection) Tourism Days of guesthouse grandeur In its heyday, Bella Vista was a fashionable place to stay Few today would remember one of the grandest of the hills guesthouses, Bella Vista in Olinda. In its day, this was “the” place to stay, boasting all manner of amenities, including a ballroom, tennis court and a renowned kitchen, and of course spectacular views. Newspapers of the day are sprinkled with accounts of balls and soirees, along with who-was-who among the up to 80 guests. Built in 1903 by Edmund Boulter, it originally comprised one building (to the right in the photo above), with extensions added progressively. Perched on the hill above Kenloch (built in 1918), ownership of Bella Vista passed in 1921 to the wealthy Bremner family. The Boulter family would later resume ownership before selling the business to the McKays at the end of the World War 2. The decline of Bella Vista was emblematic of the malaise that diminished guesthouse culture in the hills. The Great Depression, World War 2 and the motor car shifted tourism in the Dandenongs to day-tripping rather than extended stays and more permanent residential living also took hold. Like so many of these grand houses before and since, Bella Vista succumbed to fire in 1956. Its location is recalled in Bella Vista Crescent, which rises from the Mount Dandenong Tourist Road opposite the now closed Cuckoo Restaurant. Richmond Guardian 12.4.1924 Where do you live? Up a long … A friend delights in telling this tale of his schooldays: `Where do you live?’ a teacher asked of one of his fellow students at a local technical college. `Up-a-long road’ came the reply. There followed a clip around the ears (unheard of these days but not uncommon for scholastic insubordination more than half a century ago). The poor fellow did in fact live in Upalong Road, Mount Dandenong. The origin of the name is uncertain, but the road formed the northern boundary of an early 20th century subdivision of Cambridge Gardens, an old berry farm excised from the forest in the late 19th century. It led to a house named Upalong, home for a few years to architect and artist Percy Kernot (18661943). The road is still there, unsealed and not very long at all. “Upalong” is a Canadian-English word, specifically from Newfoundland, and meaning “on or of the Canadian mainland”, according to the Collins Dictionary. It has a sort of “not from these parts” meaning. There is some suggestion of 16th century English origins. Page 1 MOUNTAIN TALES May 2025 No.4 ANZAC The many claims to the memory of Sgt Ernie Orr As World War 1 drew to a close, in the clamour to claim those who served as “theirs”, the names of the fallen and those who had returned or served at home were recorded in villages, towns and cities across the land. Given the variety of such commemoration, it was not unusual to find the same names memorialised multiple times. Such was the case with Ernest James Orr (1895-1915), variously remembered on memorials in Ferny Creek, Ferntree Gully, Coburg, Canberra and London. “Ernie” Orr joined the AIF on 15 August 1914, aged 19 years and 11 months, a little more than a week after war on Germany was declared. Born in North Melbourne, he gave his trade upon enlistment as `baker’, having served just under four years as an apprentice at L. and H. Warren on the corner of Bell St and Sydney Road, Coburg. He was single and gave his next of kin as his father, James, living in Park St, Coburg. We know he was 5’5″ in height and Roman Catholic. A corporal in the 7th Battalion, service number 182, and noted as a “crack shot”, he was promoted to the rank of Lance Sergeant just a month after enlistment. He had previously served in the Naval Brigade and Citizen Forces in Coburg. Orr was paralysed after being shot in the head and the spine during the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April May 1915. He was evacuated initially to Alexandria and shipped four months later to London, where he died as a result of his wounds on 14 November 1915 at Brooklands Convalescent Home, Weybridge. Ernest Orr is remembered on the honour board naming `The Ex-Pupils of this School who Served the Empire in the Great War’ which now hangs in the foyer of the Ferny Creek Primary School. His name is one of three marked with a “K” beside it, signifying that he was killed in action or died later from wounds. As historian Ken Inglis pointed out in his study Sacred Places, local honour boards, commenced during the war, had a secondary purpose of encouraging recruitment. Orr’s name is also on the Anzac Avenue Index on the Sherbrooke Road Corner, listed at number 17 of the 103 names recorded. Ernest Orr is also found on the Ferntree Gully State School memorial “to the boys of this school who fell in the Great War”, now relocated to the Tim Neville Arboretum in Dorset Road. Due to some extensive work by Sydneybased war graves researcher Cathy Sedgewick, we know that Orr is also commemorated on the Town of Coburg Roll of Honour in the old City Hall in Bell St, Coburg. A tree was planted in his memory in the Avenue of Honour at the Coburg Lake Reserve (Tree 98) in Gaffney Street, Coburg. E.J. Orr is also on the Roll of Honour, located in the Hall of Memory Commemorative Area at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. He was buried with Catholic rites in one of the military sections of the Wandsworth Cemetery on 18 November 1915. A Commonwealth War Graves headstone marks the burial site, in which lie 34 Australian soldiers from World War 1. So how is it that Ernest Orr’s name is on so many different memorials and what is his link to the hills? The Coburg connection is clear enough. He lived and worked there in 1914 and had also attended St. Paul’s Roman Catholic School, Coburg. But Orr had only moved to Coburg in 1907 following the premature death of his mother, Elizabeth, who died suddenly at her home in Upper Ferntree Gully on 1 May that year aged just 46. It was this tragedy which precipitated the family’s move to the inner suburbs. Elizabeth Orr is buried in an unknown grave at the Ferntree Gully Cemetery. The Orrs at this time owned a property near the Upper Ferntree Gully railway station and within weeks of his wife’s death, on Monday 20 June 1907 her husband James had put it up for sale, along with its furniture, contents, a milking cow, two heifers and poultry. Before this, there is evidence that the Orr children had been educated for a time at the One Tree Hill School No. 3228 (later Ferny Creek). A report of a school concert in 1903 at the Shire Hall notes Nellie Orr (Ernie’s sister) as a participant. Just how the Orrs came to One Tree Hill School is still unclear. The school had opened in 1895, with much of the drive for it coming from the staunchly Catholic matriarch Jane Murphy, whose family farmed the district from the 1870s. The Orrs were Catholic, so perhaps it was a faith connection. Equally, James Orr has taken up Crown land in the district as early as 1895 and may well have been labouring locally in these intervening years. However it came to be, Ernie’s scholarship at One Tree Hill school must have been brief … but enough for him to have been recalled for the purpose of the school honour board and the Ferny Creek Avenue of Honour. Further reading National archives of Australia, NAA: B2455, Orr, Ernest James Cathy Sedgewick, Wandsworth Cemetery, London, England: War Graves, E.J. Orr https://ww1austrburialsuk.weebly.com/wandsworthearlesfield.html Hume Leader 25.4.2015 Old Ferntree Gully Shire History Facebook page Religion A different dawn service On Easter Monday 1937, Melbourne’s Anglican Archbishop and former chaplain to the King, the Most Reverend Frederick Waldegrave Head MC MA (Camb.) (18741941), braved the cold, fog and drizzle that only a hills autumn can turn on to preside over a multi-denominational dawn service at the Ferny Creek Recreation Reserve. The idea for an open air gathering apparently came from the Shire of Fern Tree Gully. To what end the shire was involved is unclear, but the event was embraced by an assortment of Christian denominations in the district (excepting the Roman Catholics, who were possibly not invited in those still deeply sectarian times). The event attracted somewhere between 400 and 1000 people, according to various press reports, who gathered beneath a 7.5-metre white cross erected by the Shire on the oval for the occasion. An inch of rain overnight in the nearby hills and temperatures of around 47 degrees F (8 degrees C) no doubt served to focus the minds of worshippers as the service began in darkness at 6.30am. “The congregation, wrapped in overcoats, stood silently beneath a group of tall gum trees that dripped moisture after a night of rain. Residents from hillside homes and holiday-makers from mountain guesthouses sang joyfully their Easter hymns, accompanied by a choir of bell birds, whip birds, and parrots, invisible watchers in the tree tops,” the Argus reported the next day. With some prescience as the world rumbled rapidly towards another war, the archbishop told the gathered multitude that life was full of greater possibilities than it was 30 or 40 years ago; yet there was much to trouble youth. “There is wrong in the world, and we want to put it right,” he said. “There is suffering, and we want to heal it. And, beyond all, there is the mystery of death. Life now Is full and rich and glorious, but some time life will come to an end. And what then?” Page 2 Many of those present would find out prematurely soon enough. Archbishop Head was joined on the podium by Reverend J.A. Pawson (Presbyterian, Belgrave), Reverend E.H. Holloway (Union Church, Upwey), Reverend H.G. Busby (Church of England, Olinda) and Mr H.J Patterson (Church of Christ). Music to accompany the hymns was provided by the Bayswater Salvation Army boys’ band. Frederick Head was leader of the Church of England in Victoria from 1929 until his death following a car accident near Frankston in 1941. MOUNTAIN TALES May 2025 No.4 Above L-R: The Log Cabin in the Ferny Creek Recreation Reserve; a detail of the cabin’s construction; a view of the interior (Photos: John Schauble, MDDHS). Below L-R: May Sugden’s depiction of the cabin in 1937; a Rose Series view of the reserve in the 1930s showing the cabin, main hall and tennis pavilion at the rear; the log cabin in 1974. Recreation A community’s log cabin celebrates a centenary The Log Cabin in the Ferny Creek Recreation Reserve has long been a special place for the communities of Sassafras and Ferny Creek. This year marks the centenary of this humble structure, which over the years has served as the first home of the local Presbyterian congregation, the Sassafras-Ferny Creek Fire Brigade, Ferny Creek Scouts, bowling club and the Ferny Creek Horticultural Society. Built to honour the memory of George Henry Doery OBE, first chairman of the reserve committee, the building was opened by his successor, Dr B. Stewart Cowen, before a host of local worthies on 11 April 1925. George Doery died a year earlier at the age of 63, having made his fortune as the principle of a city clothing manufacturer, Davies Doery Pty Ltd, and as a director of another Flinders Lane firm Thomson Davies and Co and of the Standard Box Manufacturing Company. At the time of his death, he was living in semiretirement at his property `Mimosa’ in The Crescent, Sassafras. The Doery family, who lived in Canterbury, acquired their hills property around 1910 as a summer retreat and became active in the Sassafras and Ferny Creek communities. There was evidently a degree of tension between the often impoverished farming pioneers of the district and the monied newcomers of the late 1910s and 1920s who came to hills for recreation, often building handsome holiday homes. This disaffection occasionally found expression in the local press, but there is no question that George Doery made a huge contribution to improving the sporting and recreational facilities centred on the reserve, which at the time was also home to the Ferny Creek Football Club. It was this which led a public meeting held in May 1924 to resolve to build the log cabin to perpetuate his memory. During World War 1, Doery made his family residence in Mont Albert Road available for convalescent soldiers. His work and philanthropy during the war led to the award of an Order of the British Empire in 1918. George Doery was also a leading figure in the Baptist church, president of the Baptist Union of Victoria from 1914 to 1917, chairman of the Victorian Baptist Trustees and a benefactor of various church groups. He was described in a 1939 history of the Victorian Baptists as “a good man, a sincere and lowly-minded Christian”. After his death, provision was made for a cottage in Sassafras to be used as a rest house for Ministers and Home Missionaries of the church. The construction of American-style round log cabins became popular in the hills in the 1920s and 1930s, sometimes built as weekenders, and a few examples remain extant today (Kate Kelly’s bar in Olinda incorporates another, originally a tearooms built by John Dodd in the 1920s). The style probably owed more to the early 20th century Arts & Crafts movement than to the American backwoods and even less to the simple split log cabins erected by 19th century Victorian settlers. The Ferny Creek reserve cabin is perhaps the most authentic example of the style remaining locally. A plaque commemorating Doery and affixed over the large open fireplace in the cabin was unveiled by his son as part of the opening ceremony. A second plaque honours the service of Dr Cowen, who chaired the reserve committee from 1925 until 1940. The log cabin served as home of the local Presbyterian congregation for over a decade. An occasional visitor was Miss May Sugden, daughter of Rev E.H. Sugden (long-serving master of Queens College, Melbourne 1888-1929). She described a service there in January 1932 as taking place in a “a little log cabin in the heart of the bush … gum trees encircling it, great tall giants of the forest”. “Around it gather men, women and children desporting [sic] themselves in the sunshine, for the Bush Recreation Ground forms the unconventional court of approach.” “No pretence at stained glass windows or ornate pulpit mar the simplicity and sincerity. In this Bush Hut the bush folk gather for worship. Here is the peace and quietness, `God seems to lay His hand on quiet and brain’, and if the grandeur of architectural beauty is missing, there is an atmosphere of simple home-like sincerity within the Cabin walls, which once felt, will never be forgotten.” (The Story of the Log Cabin Congregation, Sassafras Victoria, c.1937) See also: F.J. Wilkin, Baptists in Victoria: Our First Century 1838-1938, East Melbourne 1939. Page 3 MOUNTAIN TALES May 2025 No.4 Excursions Perilous directions from the Cheshire Cheese Before the railways made access to the Dandenongs relatively easy in the 1880s, simply getting here could be something of a trial. The earliest local “roads” were tracks carved by pastoralists and timber cutters using bullock teams. Dandenong Creek was a major barrier; it flooded frequently and much of the surrounding land was swampy. As the hills attracted more excursionists in the 1860s, a route via Fern Tree Gully Road became popular. A log bridge across the creek was constructed at the foot of Wheelers Hill in 1855. Variously known as Drews Road, Heads Gully Road, Ashleys Road and Break-neck Road, Fern Tree Gully Road left Dandenong Road at Oakleigh (as it still does), headed due east to Mulgrave, arriving at Wheelers Hill, which offered a splendid view of the Dandenongs beyond. Navigating the last stretch to Fern Tree Gully could be a challenge. In the late 1860s, visitors were advised to seek advice at an establishment glorying in the name of the Cheshire Cheese Hotel. This substantial bluestone premises was located at the corner of what is now Lum Road, a little back towards the city from the current Wheelers Hill Hotel. Excursionists were advised to enquire at the Cheshire Cheese about “the one turning where there is a possibility of going wrong”. The Cheshire Cheese had a chequered history. Opened in 1868 by Robert Wolstenholme and changing hands a couple of times in the following years, it was in and out of the licensing court and temporarily de-licenced in 1885. The pub had a farm and useful quarry attached and was an important coaching stop for Cobb and Co. It became a temperance hotel in 1894-95 and after World War 2 was converted into a private home. Derelict by the 1970s, it was demolished. One party that ventured into the Cheshire Cheese for directions in 1869 soon found themselves in all sorts of trouble. Writing under the pen-name “Giacomo”, a correspondent in the Telegraph and St Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian described a camping trip to the hills by a band of four young men nicknamed Bandy, Skinny, Chicken and Beaky, along with their faithful dog Flora. Setting out with great expectations on Christmas Eve, the party made cracking pace until reaching the Cheshire Cheese. Here things took an unexpected turn: “What might have been a serious fracas took place. One of our party asked for a drink of water, when a drunken man came out and made some insulting remarks to him. On being remonstrated with by us, he said his pugilistic capabilities were such that he would fight any one of us. Accordingly he made a vicious drive at Chicken, when Skinny rushed between them and tripped the drunken chap up, which caused him to plough up the road and dust for some five yards or so … The chap recovered, and made a blow at Bandy, who dodged it. Again he made another, when Bandy presented the muzzle of his gun in his teeth, and threatened to shove it down his throat if he did not desist where upon the fellow said, “Is it guns you mean? All right; I’ll meet you with a gun,” and staggered back into the hotel. Now, we thought it high time to make tracks, and hardly did we get a hundred yards up the road, when he followed us with a loaded rifle, and fired. The ball whizzed past in close proximity to our heads. In case he should fire again, we turned sharply off the road into the bush, and ran in for some short distance, our enemy still pursuing us. At this stage we deemed it advisable to plant amongst the trees. He energetically searched for us for some time, and he brushed just past us; but being unsuccessful, he eventually abandoned the search with sundry oaths.” Deciding to camp the night where they had come to rest, the hapless wanderers waited until morning to resume their travels only to find themselves lost (having taken the one turning where things go wrong!) With One Tree Hill in sight, they pressed on by bush bashing towards their goal, only to find themselves floundering in the thick scrub and then the swamp, getting drenched and more thoroughly lost before stumbling across a bush hut. Eventually making it to Fern Tree Gully, they pitched camp behind the hotel and three of them set off to the summit of One Tree Hill. There they found spectacular views of Port Phillip, Westernport and Mount Macedon to the north west. They also saw the famous great Sisters, huge mountain gums, and gloried in the coolness of the fern gully before becoming lost again on the descent! “The road is very good for half the distance, and the other part may be considered as not bad,” the 1869 Guide to Excursionists from Melbourne diplomatically opined of Fern Tree Gully Road. Most Above: A depiction of the Cheshire Cheese Hotel by Charles Salis Lloyd (1902-54.) Lloyd painted the building in 1942, reimagining a scene from the 1890s. The painting hung in the Oakleigh municipal offices and was later acquired by the Monash Gallery of Art. (Waverley Historical Society) early comers who travelled the 20 or so miles to the Gully on foot, horseback or by carriage stayed at least one night before returning to the city. “For those averse to gipsying” the guide advised the hotel provided accommodation. “At the top of [the gully], there is a well-defined splitters’ track, leading to Sassafras Gully, a sight of which alone will well pay for the three-mile walk; but, in addition, there are beautiful spots near this gully which the splitters have not yet marred.” “From the gully, matted with this delicate and fragrant tapestry, arise the giants of the forest, the lofty eucalypti and blackwood trees, straight as a javelin, and branchless until they attain an altitude of 200 or 250 feet, where they spread their plumes to the sun and air. The wind may be `chanting a thunder-psalm’ overhead, but below all is calm and silent, save for the musical ripple of the brook, or the peculiar note of the lyre-bird, whose graceful plumage seems to have been designed to harmonise with the exquisite forms of the surrounding foliage.” “Surely this is the most enjoyable of the State Forests–certainly the most useful to Melbourne folks. While on the top of the ranges, remember the one-tree clearing, as the view from there is worth seeing.” Max Lay, Melbourne’s Miles: The Story of Melbourne’s Roads, 2nd edn, Bulleen, 2022; Helen Coulson, Story of the Dandenongs, Melbourne, 1959; `Our First Camp Out’, by `Giacomo’, Telegraph and St Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian, 25.9.1875; Guide to Excursionists from Melbourne: Containing Outs for Shooting and Fishing Scenery and Picnic, Outs on the Bay and the Yarra and for Walking, Riding and Driving, H. Thomas, Melbourne (1869) About the MtDDHS Who are we? Our members are people interested in the collection, preservation and sharing of local history. Where are we? We maintain a small office in and meet at Farndon’s Hall, Falls Rd, Kalorama. When do we meet? On the first Saturday of each month (except January) from 10am until noon. What does it cost? An annual membership subscription of $20 is payable. Contact the Secretary: mtddhs@gmail.com Find us on Facebook Page 4