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HENSLEY PARK HOMESTEAD SCHOOL HOUSE

Other Name HENSLEIGH PARK Location Hensley Park Road HENSLEY PARK HENSLEY PARK, Southern Grampians Shire File Number 1611 Level Stage 2 study complete

[1/2] 23453 Hensley Park School 1919 [2/2] 23453 Hensley Park School 1918

Statement of Significance

What is significant?
The remains of the once substantial Hensley Park Homestead Complex are located in a paddock, on a rise about 1.2km east of Hensley Park Road between Noske's Subdivision Road and Wensley's Road 15kms north of Hamilton. The only surviving structure above ground is a two storey bluestone school room. The walls are rock-faced bluestone with simple dressings for minor details. The building's form is unusual. It is two stories with a semi-submerged cellar below and a single chamber above. Posts, one of which is missing, and a central beam support the timber floor. Large hooks hang from the beam. Access to the cellar is by a flight of steps on the south side, partly outside and partly inside and off a courtyard. The kitchen was located on the opposite side of the courtyard. An arched bellcote surmounts the gable above. Internally the schoolroom is lined with a dado framed in timber with diagonal boards in panels. A stone pine (Pinus pinea) and a Bunya Bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii) are located near the school house, as are other mature trees. Thomas Bromell, MLC, established Hensley Park, originally called Hensleigh Park between 1862 and 1872, amassing some 14 000 acres. Brommell was a very well respected man, who rose from humble beginnings as a carrier who carted goods to the goldfields. Hensleigh Park homestead was described as "comfortable dwelling-house of seventeen rooms, numerous out-buildings, large stable, woolshed, &c." at the time of his death in 1887. It is likely that the Brommell family built the school to serve their own seven children, as well as those of the many workman's families which would have worked on Hensley Park. The Brommell family remained at Hensley Park until 1910 when they moved to Ilira. The housing materials from the buildings at Hensley Park were plundered for construction and repairs for other buildings after they fell into disrepair. Many footings still survive. There has been no architect or builder associated with any of the buildings constructed at Hensley Park. The school building is in good condition, although the cellar has been partially flooded for over fifty years. The building retains an excellent degree of integrity.

How is it significant?
The Hensley Park Homestead School House is of historical and architectural signficance to the Southern Grampians Shire. The Hensley Park Homestead Complex is of archeological and historical significance to the Southern Grampians Shire as a Heritage Inventory Site.
Why is it significant?
What remains of Hensley Park Homestead Complex is of archaeological significance for the high potential for physical fabric which may exist below surface. This fabric has the potential to allow us to understand the day to day lives of pastoral families who lived and worked on the land. The former Hensley Park Homestead complex is of historical significance for its association with Thomas Brommell, MLA, and his family who have been important members of the Hamilton community for over 140 years. It is of further historical significance for the long history of ownership in the same family, from 1862 to current day. The schoolroom provides us with further historical evidence of the way in which people lived, and the development of local schools around major pastoral enterprise. The trees which are planted near the school house are typical of the use of sombre evergreen trees with dark foliage used for both shade and identification of places of learning. They represent a traditional planting practice around schools in the nineteenth century.