Quilly Park (former)

Quilly Park located at 55 Craigs Lane Pearcedale is significant to the City of Casey. The following elements are considered to be significant:

• The highly intact wattle and daub cottage [with early corrugated iron extensions] (c.1873);
• The Olive Tree and Peppercorn Tree located adjacent to the wattle and daub cottage;

The adjacent Edwardian timber residence (c.1916) has been externally altered and added to and is not considered significant. The row of Monterey Cypress (c.1939) along the driveway are not considered significant. Modern stables, shedding and outbuildings are not significant.

The wattle and daub cottage [with extensions] and its adjacent Olive and Peppercorn trees at Quilly Park is of local historic and scientific (technical) significance to the City of Casey.

Historically, 'Quilly Park' is significant as one of the earliest residential farm buildings to survive intact within the municipality. The cottage exhibits a high degree of integrity externally (restored 2012), retaining the original building and roof form, materials and cladding (including timber shingles beneath iron). The later corrugated iron store room and skillion addition, as well as the Olive and Peppercorn trees which survive adjacent to the cottage are demonstrative of the small incremental change over time, typical of pastoral buildings of this size and period, which responded to immediate need. Its proximity to the adjacent [much altered] c.1916 timber residence does not detract from this significance. The cottage demonstrates the living conditions, resourcefulness and way of life of those from this earliest period of pastoral settlement in the municipality, particularly that of those who took up land under the Land Selection Acts. (Criterion A)

Scientifically (technically) the cottage at Quilly Park is significant as a rare surviving example of an early vernacular building technique (wattle and daub) of timber and mud. These buildings, once relatively common in rural areas are becoming increasingly rare due to their fragility. Quilly Park demonstrates a particular system where timber uprights were used with horizontal members of local ti-tree with mud and lime mixed to attach to the members, and rendered with a lime and mud render. (Criterion F)