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WARRAYURE HOMESTEAD COMPLEX

Other Name MOUNT STURGEON PLAINS NORTH Location Rudolph's Road WARRAYURE, Southern Grampians Shire File Number 586 Level Stage 2 study complete

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Statement of Significance

What is significant?
The Warrayure Homestead Complex, halfway between Hamilton and Dunkeld, was established from 1860 by Stephen Henty, a member of the famous early pioneering family, the first Overstraiters. It represented the reunion of the North and South sections of the much earlier Mount Sturgeon Plains squatting run which had been subdivided in 1857 which had been settled first by Alexander Cameron. Henty lived at Warrayure until his financial collapse in 1871, the year before he died, when the property was sold to the Cameron family, amongst the first Overlanders. It stayed in their hands until 1891. Henty commissioned the recently arrived Scottish architect, John Shanks Jenkins who was important not only for his extensive private practice but also for his role as engineer in the surrounding municipalities and subsequently at the City of Richmond. Later he was a councillor of Richmond and won first prize with Charles D'Ebro and John Grainger for the present Princes Bridge, Melbourne. While chaste and conservative the house is not without interest in its planning, details and siting. It appears to have been set in an extensive landscape garden, now largely lost. Importantly, there is an extensive range of outbuildings around the rear courtyard, shearer's cottage and a large woolshed some distance from the house, all probably designed by Jenkins. These, with the house are substantially intact and, apart from the decoration of the interiors of the house, retaining a high degree of integrity. The structures are variously in fair, good and excellent condition.

How is it significant?
The Warrayure Homestead Complex is of historical and architectural significance to the State of Victoria and to the Southern Grampians Shire.

Why is it significant?
The Warrayure Homestead Complex is of historical significance for its interconnections with the great families, the Hentys and the Camerons, the former Overstraiters and the latter Overlanders, thereby representing the two major pioneering thrusts into Australia Felix. More specifically, it represents the declining fortunes of the former and the rising fortunes of the latter. Warrayure is of architectural significance for its association with the architect and engineer, John Shanks Jenkins, who was particularly important in the Western District until his move to Melbourne where he continued to prosper professionally and personally. Not only is the homestead one of his first substantial designs, the whole of the extensive complex appears to have been his responsibility.