Our current exhibition Continues in February 2019.
Land Use by European Settlers
In the 1840s and 1850s there were grand plans for the Heidelberg District to become the fruit and vegetable hub for Melbourne. Large estates were divided into smaller tenant farms. Fruit trees and market gardens abounded along the Yarra River contours. Farm labourers lived in cottages in Heidelberg, and the village blacksmith was an integral part of an agriculture-focused community.
All this came to a sudden halt with a string of four disastrous floods in 1863 and 1864. The land along the river flats was turned over to cattle and dairy industries instead. Paddocks were replaced by hay crops, and the market gardens in the sandbelt suburbs and Werribee became more prominent than Heidelberg.
Planting in Heidelberg took a different direction including nursery planting, domestic planting, Chinese market gardens, commemorative and civic planting, rehabilitation planting and more recently, community planting.
This exhibition celebrates these different types of planting in the Heidelberg District from the 1840s through to today. We have displays of historical photographs, objects relevant to farming in the Heidelberg district, documents, maps and many other illustrations.
To see the exhibition, the Heidelberg Courthouse Museum is open to the general public on Sunday afternoons between 2pm and 5pm. Cost of entry is $5 for adults. Special showings can be arranged for groups by contacting the museum either by phone on 9455 2130 or by email, heidelberg.historical.society@gmail.com.
The First Speaker Meeting for 2019
John Noack
8PM on Tuesday February 12.
Uniting Church Community Centre,
Seddon Street, Ivanhoe
John Noack is a researcher into the earliest European settlers in the Heidelberg area. He has been in contact with Phil Jones, a long-time resident of Heidelberg, who lived on the location where early settler, Captain Sylvester Brown, built a house on his Hartlands Estate in 1840.
John has been able to compile a detailed history of Captain Sylvester Brown, following years of shared research with Phil Jones. He has also located such sources of information as original letters, diaries and biographies, especially from the State Library.
This talk promises to be most interesting to those who wish to know more about the lives of those settlers who first came to this area in the late 1830s.
This will be the first of our bi-monthly meetings for the year.
All welcome.
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Heidelberg Historical Society was formed in 1967.
Since then, we have developed a substantial collection of photographs, objects, maps, documents, works of art and other items that help to tell the story of Heidelberg and its surrounding localities.
Visit our Museum or contact us by email etc to find out what we can offer you.
We always welcome those interested in joining our Society as well as members of the public who wish to research the materials we hold in our museum.Our museum is located in the old Heidelberg Court House, Jika Street, Heidelberg, next door to the Heidelberg Police Station. Opening hours are 2PM to 5PM on Sundays.
Entry charge is $5 per person.
moreWe have a large collection of photographs, maps, newspapers and other documents, books, art works, costumes and other items relevant to the history of this area. Visitors are welcome to research our collections.
Anyone interested in local history can become a member. We welcome people who can assist us to staff the museum on open days and help us to keep our collections up to date and in good condition.
Donations
Donations are always welcome to assist us in maintaining the museum.Following the 1838 government land sales, which were held in Sydney, "Heidelberg" was the name used by some people for the district rather than the current Heidelberg suburb. It appears that land owner R.H. Browne called his farm "Heidelberg". It was Portion 6 in the 1838 land sale. It's southern border was the Yarra River, including the later named Sill's Bend and Fanning's Bend. The vast majority of his land was way to the north of the township. Its northern boundary line intersected the current Lower Plenty Road. To the east it did not reach the Plenty River, and to the west it was some way back from the current line of Rosanna Road. By the 2000s, the land was to be partly Viewbank, partly Rosanna and partly Heidelberg.
Like most of the 1838 purchasers, including Thomas Walker, R. H. Browne was looking for a quick profit. He did not keep his "Heidelberg" for long. "HEIDELBERG, July 26 (1839). Portions of land on the Darrebin River (sic) with right of road to the Yarra Yarra..." was part of an advertisement he placed in the "Port Phillip Patriot" on 29 July 1839. He was still around later in the year as an advertisement in the Port Phillip Gazette, 14 December, 1839, still refers to him as "R. H. Browne Esq. of Heidelberg." The Sydney Monitor and Commercial Advertiser, Monday 9 March 1840, page 3, refers to "Heidelberg, the estate of R. H. Browne". For whatever reason occurred to him, he called his farm "Heidelberg" and the district came to be called "Heidelberg." We do not know whether or not he spent time at the German University town of that name. By mid 1843, he had sold the last sub-division of it.
In our museum, which is the former Heidelberg Courthouse, we have a collection of bound Victorian Government Gazettes in a number of volumes. The first few volumes have "Warringal" on the spine. From the 1860s onwards, it changes to "Heidelberg". The township was called Warringal until the 1860s.
At different times, the Shire/City of Heidelberg included Fairfield and Alphington to the south and went as far north as Hurstbridge. Our area of interest therefore covers areas included in municipalities under the name of Heidelberg at that time in our history. Since the demise of the City of Heidelberg in the 1990s, our subsequent interest is in the areas covered by the City of Banyule.
