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Cottage atTarwin Parkq

Other Name Halewood Location Arbuthnot Road,, TARWIN LOWER VIC 3956 - Property No B7221 File Number B7221 Level Regional

[1/1] B7221 Tarwin Park Cottage

Statement of Significance

What is significant? The cottage at Tarwin Park is associated with eminent South Gippsland pioneer George Black and his son Archibald. George Black bought the Tarwin Meadows run in 1851, and eventually controlled more than 30,000 hectares in the area. The settlement that developed at Tarwin Meadows to accommodate his many workers and their families comprised timber workers' cottages, which were built in stages from the 1860s, a store, post office and eventually a school. George's son Archibald, after his marriage, took up the nearby Tarwin Park station (formerly Halewood), where he built a substantial homestead surrounded by a large garden, and lived there in some style. In about 1905 he moved a number of the timber cottages from his father's station to Tarwin Park as accommodation for his own workers. The Tarwin Park homestead, the farm buildings and most of the workers' cottages were destroyed by a bushfire in 1942, and the Tarwin Meadows buildings were demolished in the 1960s. The cottage at Tarwin Park is one of the few buildings on the station to have survived the 1942 fire.
The cottage at Tarwin Park is made up of four of the cottages brought from Tarwin Meadows, which were bolted together under the one roof. It is of weatherboard with a gabled iron roof. The floors are believed to have been made from timber from the 1900 wreck of the Magnat in Venus Bay. A skillion and verandah have been added, and the chimneys and the windows (apart from those on the south side) are not original. The iron gates into the cottage garden are believed to have come from Tarwin Meadows.
How is it significant? The Tarwin Park cottage at Tarwin Lower is significant for historical reasons at a Regional level to South Gippsland Shire.
Why is it significant? The cottage at Tarwin Park is historically significant as the only remaining building from the Tarwin Meadows run of George Black, an important pioneer of South Gippsland. It is a reminder of, and the only extant survivor of, the Tarwin Meadows property, the largest and most important run in the area, and of the Tarwin Park property of his son Archibald Black. It is also historically significant as an illustration of the accommodation that was once provided for workers on country properties, as well as a reminder of the transport of early timber buildings.
Classified: 08/09/2004