Wednesday 30 April 2014

Heritage Festival May 4 2014


The City of Casey National Trust Heritage Festival is on again - this Sunday at the Old Cheese Factory in Homestead Road in Berwick. This is a free event - here are some of the activities -  
  • Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony by Wurundjeri Elder, Bill Nicholson
  • Local Heritage Groups will have displays and can provide information
  • Heritage plays on the history of the Old Cheese Factory  by the Woodland Players
  • Free antique appraisals (no stamps, coin or jewellery)
  • Live music by the Berwick & District Folk Club
  • High Tea (please book on 8786 7900)
  • Animal farm for children  and more.
The event is from 11.00am to 4.00pm and it's free. All welcome.


Wednesday 16 April 2014

Fountain Gate Housing Estate

The Fountain Gate housing estate, in Narre Warren, was developed by Isador Magid in the mid 1960s. He employed Robin Boyd to create the Estate on Radburn principles, which involved separating pedestrians and vehicles by providing short cul-de-sac entries and internal spines of open space. Prominent architects were also employed to design Protoype houses. The Fountain Estate is bounded by Tinks Road, Sweet Gum Avenue, Prospect Hill Road and Dawn Avenue and is listed in the City of Casey Heritage Scheme as being of local significance and possibly State significance and an innovative and imaginative housing development. Some individual houses also have Heritage listing. 


Fountain Gate Estate 1972


House and land prices at the Fountain Gate Estate from an advertisement in The Age June 17, 1976.


Fountain Gate Estate 1978. The Fountain Gate Shopping Centre wasn't opened until March 1980. The City of Berwick Civic Centre was opened in December 1978.


A copy of the original Estate plan which came with the contract of sale.


This is not very legible but it is a letter dated November 14, 1966 from Alexander Magit & Associates to the Shire of Berwick  advising us of the  approval of your Council for the erection of the motif in the form of  a fountain in accordance with the designs prepared by Mr Robin Boyd, Architect.

According to a long serving City of Casey/City of Berwick employee, this Robin Boyd fountain at the entrance to the Estate  was only turned on once when the estate was opened ( early 1970’s ) and the water went onto the highway which caused traffic problems, this may have been because the prevailing wind at the time. As you can imagine because of it’s proximity to the highway this would be a problem, which became worse when the highway was widened, it was never turned on again.


Artist's impression of the Fountain Gate Estate from 
The Age June 3, 1967.  
The fountain, which is still there, was designed by Romberg & Boyd. 


Detail of the Fountain from The Age June 3, 1967.


Photograph of the fountain from The Age June 3, 1967

There was some discussion in the early 1990s about the Fountain Gate name and whether it should become the name of  a suburb. The Fountain Gate Shopping Centre tended to dominate the area and people began to use Fountain Gate to describe the area, rather than the correct name of Narre Warren. In the end it was never adopted as a suburb name and both the Fountain Gate Housing Estate and the Shopping Centre are in Narre Warren.


This article from the Sunday Age of  February 16, 1992 mentions the controversy of the use of the name Fountain Gate as opposed to Narre Warren.  Also of interest is the price of a house $106,000. 

However, the fact that Fountain Gate was never officially adopted as a place name didn't prevent developers using the name in a proposed future housing estate, south of the Highway. This brochure isn't dated but I presume it is from the 1980s.





Thursday 3 April 2014

Casey-Cardinia: Commemorating the Great War: 1914 - 1918 blog


We have  a new blog - Casey-Cardinia: Commemorating the Great War: 1914 - 1918. You can find it here http://caseycardinia1914-1918.blogspot.com.au/ and there are also links to the blog from our home page www.cclc.vic.gov.au

The aim of this blog  is to be a  forum for commemorating and recording the impact of World War One on the people in the region now covered by the City of Casey and Shire of Cardinia - it will cover life on the home front, information about local soldiers and other personnel such as nurses and the development of local groups such as the Red Cross and Patriotic Groups. It will also look at the aftermath of the War and how communities commemorated their losses and service by the creation of Avenues of Honour and other memorials.

The blog will not be a  chronological work - it will be an eclectic look at the Great War and it's impact on our area. There is also a list of interesting and useful websites relating to the War.

We welcome input - if you have any ideas or stories to share about local soldiers or nurses or stories about how your family lived through the war then I would love to hear from you. Contact me on heather.arnold@cclc.vic.gov.au or ring me at the Narre Warren Library 9704 7696.