Farmhouse "Blinkbonnie" and Dethridge Irrigation Wheel

The Farm Complex and Dethridge Irrigation Wheel at 176 Werribee Vale Road, Maddingley.

How is it significant?

The Farm Complex and Dethridge Irrigation Wheel at 176 Werribee Vale Road, Maddingley is of local historical and aesthetic significance to the Shire of Moorabool.

Why is it significant?

The Farm Complex and Dethridge Irrigation Wheel at 176 Werribee Vale Road, Maddingley is of local historical significance for its demonstration of settlement in the Maddingley area for agricultural purposes. A farmhouse has occupied the site since 1865, and the changes made to the farmhouse and associated farm outbuildings are of historical significance for demonstrating the changing operations and fortunes of the farmers who have occupied the property.

The Farm Complex at 176 Werribee Vale Road, Maddingley is of aesthetic significance for its grand 1920s Bungalow farmhouse, which are the result of 1926 alterations to the original 19th century farmhouse. The residence contains fine detailing demonstrating the early 1920s Bungalow style, including main hipped roof with projecting gables at each end and timber flat roofed verandah between, the verandah timber fretwork valance with paired timber posts, Marseilles tile roof cladding, roughcast rendered walls, tapered broad chimneys with flat protruding capping and pots, and exposed rafters to the eaves.

The Dethridge Irrigation Wheel at 176 Werribee Vale Road, Maddingley is of local historical significance for demonstrating the development of agricultural practice, and the effect of government action through its establishment of the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission (SRWSC). The surviving system of channels and wheels in general are of local significance, for demonstrating the development of agriculture and for the influence of the reticulation of water on agriculture and housing development in Bacchus Marsh.

The Dethridge Meter Wheel, a volumetric water meter previously widely used across Australia for the measurement of irrigation water, was designed in 1910 by the engineer J.S. Dethridge, Commissioner of the SRWSC. A plant for their manufacture was established at the Commission's Depot in Bacchus Marsh.

The irrigation wheel is characteristic of those installed within the agricultural irrigation system over the Werribee and Lerderderg Rivers alluvial plain farmlands. However, the Dethridge meters no longer meet the national standards and they are gradually being replaced by Magnetic flow meters in the Bacchus Marsh Irrigation District.

1995

This property is still held by the family of the original Crown Grantee.

It has now a fine large early Bungalow style farmhouse built in the 1880s but substantially remodelled about 1924 on a site occupied by a farmhouse since 1865.

It is historically significant locally as a representative embodiment of a way of life and settlement pattern, but also a changing sequence of their architectural expression. It is also architecturally significant locally as a fine example of an architectural style.

Group

Farming and Grazing

Category

Homestead Complex