CEMENT CREEK PLANTATION

 

 

The Cement Creek Plantation, being approximately 1.8 hectares (4.5 acres), created by the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) from 1929, including 13 planted plots containing over 1476 trees, fixtures on some trees including collars and metal number tags, access tracks, the former caretaker’s residence block.   

The Cement Creek Plantation is of historical and aesthetic significance to the State of Victoria. It satisfies the following criterion for inclusion in the Victorian Heritage Register:
 
Criterion A 

Importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria’s cultural history.
Criterion D 

Importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural places and objects
Criterion E 

Importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics.
Criterion F 

Importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period.
Criterion H 

Special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in Victoria’s history. 

 

 

The Cement Creek Plantation is historically significant for its association with the provision of Melbourne’s clean water supply. It demonstrates the MMBW’s scientific endeavours from the 1920s and 1930s to ensure water purity in catchment areas which had been degraded through decades of farming, fires and logging of native forests. Part of an extensive revegetation program, this experimental plantation tested the potential of conifer species to improve land and water quality, as well as for their commercial timber potential. By the 1960s and 1970s, it was the site of the MMBW’s hydrological research to establish the impact of commercial timber growing in water catchment areas.

 

The Cement Creek Plantation a historically significant as a notable experimental plantation in a water catchment area. It represents a key moment in the management of Melbourne’s clean water supply when conifer species were tested for their capacity to improve land and water quality from the 1920s and 1930s. Although it is now understood that Victoria’s land, water and forest ecology is better served by revegetation with native species, the MMBW’s conifer experiments represent an evolutionary phase of water and forestry science. 

 

The Cement Creek Plantation is aesthetically significant for its cathedral-like atmosphere created by the over 1476 trees up to 55 metres high systematically planted in regular formations. The place is noticeably quiet as few native birds or animals are attracted to non-native conifers. The visual and non-visual aspects of this commanding landscape inspire emotions including awe, fear, peace and mystery. The close planting of Coast Redwoods in Plot 1 has particularly unusual sensory qualities, being dark due to its closed canopy and silent as a result of the thick Redwood bark absorbing sound. The plantation has achieved widespread public acclaim for its aesthetic qualities.

 

The Cement Creek Plantation is of scientific significance as one of the largest and systematically laid out scientific plantations of the twentieth century in Victoria. Although it may now be considered a ‘failure’ because scientific evidence currently demonstrates that native species, rather than non-native conifers, have greater ecological benefits for land and water quality, the design and planting of such an ambitious experimental plantation was a breakthrough for the 1920s and 1930s. The pairing of trees at the Cement Creek Plantation with those at Coranderrk for hydrological research in canopy interception has been reported to be the longest in Victoria, lasting for around 10 years.

 

The Cement Creek Plantation a historically significant for its association with the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW). From 1891 the MMBW was responsible for providing the vital public health services of sewerage and clean water supply for Melbourne. The plantation was an important experimental plantation to test conifer species in water catchment areas from the 1920s and 1930s to ensure the purity of Melbourne’s drinking water. Abandoned for this purpose from the 1980s and largely undisturbed until 2016, it is one of the few places that demonstrates the MMBW and its scientific approaches to reforestation during the twentieth century