Olive
Hill Farm
Margaret's Cottage - holiday accommodation
Margaret
River, Western Australia
History of the cottage and farm
NB click on any thumbnail for a bigger image (all images courtesy of the Battye Library)
Images clockwise:1- promotional poster for group settlement; 2 - house proud settlers 1920s;3 early tractor; 4 - neat as a pin, 1920s; 5- cleared by ringbark and fire; 6 - auguring timber to insert explosives.Built in 1922 as part of the ill-fated Group Settlement Scheme (see link for a fascinating insight) the first owner was one William Sharpe, and his family from Settlement Group 84, on Sussex Location 2275, Airdale.
The original title encompassed both sides of the road (non-existent then), and the farm operated as a dairy/piggery/orchard (as time went on even supplying the Cottees factory with passionfruit for the famous Western Australian “Passiona” soft drink).
The settlers cottages provided for group and soldier settlers were designed in England, and modelled on the basic "workers cottage". They were made locally, constructed from rough pit sawn jarrah and many were provided by the Adelaide Timber Co, whose mill site and village still stands at Witchcliffe.
They consisted of four basic rooms, much like the plan below, with external walls of rough sawn "green" (unseasoned) jarrah, unlined inside, with an iron roof, front verandah and two pre-made iron chimneys for the kitchen and front room. (see images)
The floorboards were the greatest glory, being of fine wide jarrah boards taken from the forest giants that we see no more.
Images, left to right:1-"Emigration De Luxe!" floor plan for settler's cottages;2 -"it's the rich what gets the pleasure, and the poor what gets the blame" - politicians visiting a group settlers dairy 1920s;3 -dairy 1920s
Electric power didn’t become available to the area until the 1960s, and when it did the owners moved the cottage from its original site on the southeast paddock where the cypresses can be seen, to its present location. Cheaper to shift the cottage on a jinker, than take the power the 2 km down the paddock. With the much higher rainfall of those days, apparently it was also advantageous to be on this side of the creek as the children frequently had to miss school when the creek was in flood.
In the 1970s, many changes came to the property; to take advantage of the generous government incentives of the day most of the land was cleared, it had been 60% bush until then, and the house was extended to approximately twice its original size by the device of adding a second settlement house onto the back. It also had the luxury of its first indoor bathroom and walls were lined, with any materials available.
The dairy was closed and demolished (it was on the property opposite), the sheep shearing shed next door to the house was built, and the garden immediately behind, where the mulberry tree flourishes, was converted to sheep yards.The garden shrank to a pocket-handkerchief plot at the front, and the whole property became sheep grazing with potatoes and other vegetables on the river paddocks.
