LINLITHGOW PARK

What is significant?
Walter Stephen Helpmann, a Warrnambool bank manager, almost certainly acting as a dummy for Stephen Henty of Warrayure, purchased the land on which Linlithgow Park now stands about 1870. The land then passed to Wilhelm Gottfried Habel, a failed miner, who had immigrated to Australia in 1855. The next and most important owners were Gottlieb Emil Mibus, called George, his wife Minna Valentine, nee Mibus and their four children. He developed the land near Lake Linlithgow and called it Linlithgow Park. After marrying in 1918, the couple lived in a hut on the land, which was replaced by four rooms of the present house and which was subsequently extended. George took a keen interest in local affairs including, in his youth, the local Gun Club and later as an Elder of the Lutheran Church and School at Warrayure and councillor for the Shire of Mount Rouse. The house is a plain red brick bungalow, asymmetrical because of its extension as much by original design. It is sober in its lack of details and use of conventional materials. There is an orchard and the house is set within a garden which appears to date largely from the 1920s. It retains an excellent degree of integrity and is in good condition. Two of the children of George and Minna continue to live in the house.

How is it significant?

Linlithgow Park is of architectural and historical significance to the community of Warrayure and to the Southern Grampians Shire.

Why is it significant?
Linlithgow Park is of historical significance as a representative example of the smaller farms which were established by the German population who settled the area east of Hamilton in the mid-nineteenth century.
Linlithgow Park is of architectural significance because it demonstrates a sequence of development and a sober style of building, together with its mature garden, which is typical of the early twentieth century when German immigrants had become well established.

Group

Farming and Grazing

Category

Homestead Complex