Address & Contact Edit
Coleraine-Cavendish Rd
Melville Forest VIC 3315
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Melville Forest was subdivided from the huge Konong Wootong squatter's run in the mid 19th century. Following WW1 a depressed Britain wished to provide opportunities for the betterment of some of its people, in particular its returning Army Officers. The Victorian government also wished to further open up Western Victoria. Following negotiations with Britain, in the early 1920's the Victorian Government acquired parts of
Melville Forest Estate and other large landholdings in the Western District in order to create settlement blocks for British Indian Army officers who had returned from WW1.
On the portion of the once large property that remains, the single storey timber
homestead is unremarkable and has been altered and extended several times including in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The woolshed dates from the earliest period (circa 1860) but has also been progressively extended and altered. The stables and blacksmith's
shop probably date from the same period as the
homestead. At the rear of the blacksmith's
shop there is a room, which was occupied by a Chinese gardener, but little of the early, landscaping and garden survives. Some distance from the
homestead complex, there are the remains of a hot-water sheep wash associated with the nearby Hawkins creek.
More information is available
here.