Places no longer with us

In more than 50 years of poking about in Gippsland history, I've come across many names for places that are no longer there. These are not ghost towns because their districts are not deserted. Not quite.

There is a surprising number of them. The four I'll start with are Cassilis, Dewhurst, Glenmaggie and Yallourn. There many more, and we'll come to them as the year goes past. I'll spread them out in the hope you won't tire of them.

There are towns that died when the gold ran out - think Red Jacket, Blue Jacket; towns that died when the railway missed them - think Drouin West; towns that died when better roads made them redundant - think Shady Creek; and, even places that were built on a single product and died when the product became redundant or cheaper elsewhere - think Walkerville.

Some died because they were in the way of progress - think Dewhurst, "old" Glenmaggie and Yallourn.

I'll start with the drowning of Dewhurst, one of two such events in Gippsland. Most of what follows this week comes from a story in this column in 2002.
We can now drive through "Dewhurst" again, but it should be called New Dewhurst, sitting above the original town. As the Cardinia Dam was being built to hold waters from the Thomson River for Melbourne, Dewhurst was literally bulldozed out of existence.

All the roads through the dam site were closed and all buildings removed or destroyed. Gardens and the bush were bulldozed and a desert was created, only to be covered by the creeping waters of the new dam after their long journey through a pipeline from the Thomson Dam.

The little village grew up in the 1920s, with houses scattered far and wide through the heavy bush that caused so much fear every fire season. The main concentration was at the junction of Emerald-Beaconsfield Rd and the eastward-running Stockyard Hill Rd, now called Ladd Rd.

The famous Dr L. L. Smith, politician and busybody extraordinaire, built his house "Louisville" there. It was a substantial place, and was later occupied by Mary Grant Bruce, writer of the "Billabong" books. She was to children almost what Henry Lawson was to adults. This place was later called "Bim Bim Be", from which we now have Bimbimbie Rd.

There was another celebrity, too. Harold Holt, to become our Prime Minister when Sir Robert Menzies retired, had a holiday house on Stockyard Hill Rd.
There was also a guesthouse known as "The Falls". Late in the last century, this whole area was quite the place to take one's holidays, riding the train from Melbourne to Lower Beaconsfield and then riding a coach or trap up through Guys Hill to Upper Beaconsfield.

It is hard to know exactly when these little places start up. Bateman's piggery was there in the 1890s, but Dewhurst is not listed in the Municipal Directory for 1900 or 1902. For that matter, neither is Upper Beaconsfield, though there are entries for Gembrook West, Gembrook North and Gembr

There were many orchards in the district. Trinham started Dewhurst's first one, and it was later divided between Doug Kerr and Stan Smith, two soldier settlement men.

In 1923, the Dewhurst Progress Association was formed and the community was brought together more than ever before. This was when "Dewhurst" really became a village and the name appeared on maps.

There was a small Dewhurst Post Office, run from the home of Mr Cation. There was a hall, a school and a fire station. Dewhurst was a rustic little place, but it was complete enough.

There was a non-denominational church built by George Lewis and John Shanks, probably using timber from Sam Shanks' sawmill on Smith's "Louisville". There was then a small Methodist Church in the same place, but I don't know whether it was the same building.

At some stage, the church burned down and services were held in what had been "Louisville". The Methodist Church which followed created some more confusion when someone stole it.

When the village was being cleared for the dam, the church building was sold. The money was paid and the building was loaded onto a truck and taken away. Then the man who'd really bought it arrived to collect it.

The thieves were never identified but there can't be very many cases of a church actually being stolen. Not in Victoria, anyway.
There is also some confusion over the school and the hall. According to Education Department records, State School No. 4522 - Dewhurst was opened in 1934 under the first head teacher Miss Dorothy Armstrong.

It was built by members of the community on donated land and was then leased to the department. The school ran for only 19 years.
The school was improved in that period and, while the work was going on, classes were held in a shed at "Bim Bim Be". In 1954, with enrolment at only nine children, it was closed forever.

There was also a Dewhurst Hall, and this is where the confusion arises. The only picture of the hall that I have ever seen, taken in 1938, clearly shows a sign on the side identifying the hall as the Dewhurst State School. There is a flagpole at the front and a clearly-identifiable shelter shed at the rear.

Perhaps the two were one. Where communities provided their own school, they often used it as a hall as well.
The little township's buildings were sold off and the bulldozers cleared up everything that was left, so there is no "ghost town" deep under those cold waters. The town was completely cleared away and the forests were cleared back to the maximum water level.

There was a huge toll of native wildlife, perhaps inevitably, but Melbourne Water fenced the site very securely and it is now something of a sanctuary, though it has been necessary to cull the kangaroos. This was because of the problems they were causing in the public areas, including some beautiful picnic spots below the great wall. The roos had found a place of peace and plenty, and they bred up accordingly.
I would still like to know what happened to the stolen church.