Thursday 27 September 2018

Cranbourne Pound and Pound Road

Pound Road zig zags its way across the old Shire of Cranbourne from Ballarto Road at Cardinia to the South Gippsland Highway at Hampton Park. There is a reason that it ends up in Hampton Park and that is because where Hampton Park is now located used to be a Pound.  We will let Niel Gunson author of The Good Country: Cranbourne Shire tell us  - Hampton Park - the area had originally enclosed the Dandenong Pound (later known as the Cranbourne Pound).  The ‘pound’ Paddock was later owned by the Garner (1) family of Diamond Hill, well known in Dandenong as undertakers and coach builders. When W. Garner was gored by a bull the paddock was purchased by E.V Jones of Somerville Road, Footscray (2).  It was Jones that created the Hampton Park subdivision in 1916, read more about this here.


Part of the Eumemmerring / Lyndhurst Parish Plan that shows the Dandenong Pound at the top right. The plan is dated January 14, 1859. You can see a better copy at the State Library of Victoria http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/150137
To give you some perspective - the land under the Pound was owned by Isaac Edey (lot 34). Edeys Run in modern day Hampton Park is around where the Edey homestead was located.  


The Dandenong Pound was officially established November 20, 1849 and the name was changed to the Cranbourne Pound in July 1868. This pound was closed in January 1887 and relocated.  



Establishment of the Pound
November 28, 1849



Change of name to Cranbourne Shire Pound


Relocation of the Pound from the original location
Victoria Government Gazette  January 28, 1887

Pounds played a larger role in the life of people in the early days than they do now - the Victorian Government Gazette has pages and pages of notices of impoundings of animals - stock was valuable and fences were poor. In some areas, as we have seen hawthorn hedges were used as fences or post and rail fences or wire fences. These fences were not as effective in holding cattle in as barbed wire fences, but it wasn't until November 1874 that Joseph Glidden took out the first patent for barbed wire in the USA. So it was more likely that livestock would go wandering and be impounded by the Pound Keeper, who could charge a fine for allowing the animals to stray and a daily 'sustenance' fee for feeding the animal. As  a matter of interest the Kansas Barbed Wire Museum has a history of barbed wire on their website, you can read it here.  The first advertisements in Australian newspapers for 'American barbed fencing wire' (that I could find) were in 1879.


The earliest barbed wire advertisements I can find  are from 1879.
The Australasian March 15, 1879


It appears that Pound Road takes the most direct line across the old Cranbourne Shire to the pound from the eastern side of the Shire. The  kinks in the road maybe due to influential  landowners who refused to allow a road through their property. If you look at this map at the State Library of Victoria (below or click here) then you can see that starts at Tooradin Station Road/Ballarto Road and then is almost a direct line to Hampton Park, apart from the diversion around The Springs property, owned by Sir William Clarke, who would be as influential a land owner as you could find anywhere

East of Tooradin where Koo Wee Rup, Monomeith, Yannathan etc are was part of the Koo Wee Rup Swamp and until major drainage works commenced in 1889 was fairly uninhabited. There were early settlements down around Lang Lang but before the Swamp was drained and the roads improved it would have been common to travel by boat to Tooradin and then by road and then head to the Pound and Dandenong by either what became the South Gippsland Highway or north from Tooradin to Pound Road.


Click on the map to enlarge or look at it on the State Library website, here. You can see where it starts and finishes (the red stars) and the kink around The Springs property (circled in red)
Map:  Cranbourne  prepared by Australian Section, Imperial General Staff.
Great Britain. War Office. General Staff. Australian Section, 1924.

Footnotes
(1) The surname is actually Garnar - I have written about them in my Diamond Hill post, here.
(2) Gunson, Niel The Good Country: Cranbourne Shire (Cheshire, 1968) p. 212. 

Friday 14 September 2018

High Street Cranbourne, 1984.

These photographs are from the National Archives of Australia - they show High Street in Cranbourne, corner of Sladen Street,  and were taken in 1984, presumably in April 1984 by the record number. I don't know what the occasion was but there are 7,352 photos in the series, taken all around Australia, so there must have been some purpose behind them. Look at the price of Super at the Shell Service Station - 47.9 cents per litre!.


High Street, Cranbourne 1984. Shell service station on the left, with Skewes SSW supermarket, next to it. 
National Archives of Australia B583, 4/1984 31147686


High Street, Cranbourne 1984. Kelly's Hotel is just right of centre.
National Archives of Australia B583, 4/1984 31147687



High Street, Cranbourne 1984. Not often you see  a tractor in High Street today.
National Archives of Australia B583, 4/1984 31147688


High Street, Cranbourne 1984
National Archives of Australia B583, 4/1984 31147689


High Street, Cranbourne 1984
National Archives of Australia B583, 4/1984 31147690

Thursday 13 September 2018

Construction of the Pakenham Library - November 1990 to April 1991

Here are some photographs of the construction of old Pakenham Library. Construction started in November 1990 and finished in April 1991. The library was officially opened by Pakenham Shire President, Cr Pam Wyley on Sunday May 19, 1991. The building was designed by Alan Robertson and Associates and it was constructed by Becon Constructions at a cost of $553,000. It was demolished around 2009 and the existing Library opened in July 2011. The Library site  is now occupied by the Palkenham Marketplace shopping centre which opened in December 2011.


The start of the project.
Click on the photos to enlarge them.






Concreting the slab foundations.


Horse riding prohibited!


The walls taking shape.




The bricks have arrived.




You can just see the sign on the right - Dr Bruce Cox Gardens. You can read more about Dr Cox and the gardens, here.






Just after completition


Information about the building.