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CAMP EUREKA

Location

90-100 TARRANGO ROAD YARRA JUNCTION, YARRA RANGES SHIRE

File Number

HER/2000/000047 (1)

Level

Registered

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H01981 camp eureka mess 2001
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H01981 camp eureka plan
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H01981 camp eureka medical hut
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H01981 camp eureka mess
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H01981 camp eureka rec hall
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H01981 camp eureka servery
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H01981 camp eureka model hut 1

Statement of Significance

What is Significant?
Camp Eureka is the last surviving campsite in Australia used by the Eureka Communist League.The Campsite in the Yarra Ranges was originally a farmhouse (of which only the barn remains). The land was given to the Eureka Communist League in 1945. It is now in a bushland setting, but when the site was first used as a Camp in December 1946 it had been substantially cleared.Since then every effort has been made to enhance the natural elements of the site including the planting of natives and the revegetation the site.

The site plan and buldings date from the period of 1946 to the early 1950s. Camp members built a number of huts for accommodation, a recreation hut, toilet and shover blocks. Building construction was from salavaged materials and were designed with a simple, rustic look. The largest of these is the mess hut, open on three sides with a corrugated iron roof and bush pole support. This area was used for dining as well as concerts with a small stage at the closed end of the building. Its construction and design was influenced by the experience of members during the war. Nearby are the Kitchen and the Recreation Hut. The Recreation Hut boasts a large fireplace faced with stone on the exterior, the rest of the building is of timber construction.Smaller Huts suitable for accommodation are scattered about the site. The most significant of these is the Model Hut (so called as it was to serve as a model for other huts on the site) and the medical hut. The medical hut is surprisingly intact and retains many of its features form when it was used as a clinic during the Camp's heyday. It too, is of simple bush pole frame construction and malthoid over palings.

How is it significant?
Camp Eureka is of historic, social and architectural, archaeological significance to the state of Victoria and its importance is of Australian wide signifincance.

Why is is significant?
The Eureka Youth League was formed in 1941 as a successor to a number of other bodies associated with the Communist Party. Its predecessor's had organised camps throughout the 1920s and 1930s to Phillip Island and Rosebud. Similar organisations run camps at Corrimal on the South Coast of New South Wales and Maroochydore in Queensland.

A December 1946 article in The Guardian (the official communist newspaper) announced tha the first holiday camp would be held at Camp Eureka from 23 December 1946 to 5 Jaunary 1947. The campers would enjoy hikes, sports days, volley and basket ball, dancing, concerts and film screenings. (The films were provided by the Realist Film Unit who while providing documentaries also screened Charlie Chaplin Films). Camp members were to provide a days labour and contribute to the construction of the camp. Until the mid 1950s, large numbers (up to 1,000) attended the Camp at Christmas and Easter. Amongst those attending the Camp in this period was cartoonist Noel Counihan, jazz musicans Graeme Bell and Fred Johnston and the author Frank Hardy who completed the novel Power without Glory at the Camp in 1949.

The shared work ethic, the design of the buildings and the general philosophy that was found in the Camp was an important component in left wing thinking and in particular offered a place of refuge and company for like minded souls during the Cold War period.

By the late 1960s the site had been largely abandoned and the Eureka Youth League had ceased to exist. In the early 1970s, former campers returned to the site and determined that the site could be refurbished and reused as a holiday destination again. A collective was formed and slowly the buildings are being renewed using volunteer labour as before.

Group