Place: Ballater Park - Hume City Council

Place: Ballater Park Place No.- 80
Type: Dwelling - farmhouse
Location: 960 Somerton Road, Greenvale
Critical Date(s): early mud brick cottage constructed c.early 1860s (since demolished); main
weatherboard homestead constructed c.1870s; rear weatherboard kitchen etc. constructed c. late
1800s or early 1900s.
Historic Theme(s): 'The Land: Producing'; 'The Landscape: Perceptions and Transformations'.
Previous Heritage Registration(s): None
Recommended Level of Significance: Local
Statement of Significance:
The farmhouse at Ballater Park was erected in the 1870s on a property of some 214 acres
established by the Scottish settler, Alexander Michie, in 1863. It is of local architectural and
historical significance as the substantially intact, last remaining example of the numerous
weatherboard farmhouses built in the immediate area around the same time. As a group, these
farmhouses are of interest because they were nearly all erected by Scottish immigrants on
similarly sized farms.
Ballater Park is also unique in the area for its continuing use as a farm by members of the
same family. It is also distinguished by its setting; the land surrounding the farmhouse is little
changed in its park-like quality, with gum trees dotting the gently undulating landscape. As
such it is of critical importance in demonstrating a way of life, a land use and a landscape of
particular significance in the history of the study area, and which is in danger of being lost to the
encroaching suburbia.

History and Description:
The land on which Ballater Park is situated, allotment R of Section 10 of the Parish of
Yuroke, was originally part of a station occupied by a Major Firebrace, and it appears that his
outstation was located a short distance to the east of the present homestead. 1
Allotment R of Section 10 was purchased from the Crown by a John Haslet in 1849; he
paid £1 per acre for the 314 acres. The title then passed through the hands of several owners
until Alexander and Esther Michie, ancestors of the present owners, purchased 214 acres of the
property in 1863. The other 100 acres was, by 1863, owned by a Samuel Hatty. 2
No records have yet been located concerning the arrival of the Michies in the Port
Phillip District, but Alexander Michie was born in Aberdeen in 1823 3 and the name they gave
to their property is said to have come from Esther's birthplace in Scotland. 4
In their descriptions of Alexander Michie's land, some of the earliest entries in the
Broadmeadows Road Board Rate Books 5 note the location of his 'farm', or sometimes 'house
and land', as being variously at 'Green Gully' 6 or 'Yuroke'. 7 The area 'Green Gully' referred to
the general location where Hatty, Michie, and two other Scottish immigrants John and Donald
McKerchar had settled. Their land fronted what was then called the Deep Creek Road. This
road was also known as McKerchar's Lane, then Green Gully Road, then later as Greenvale
Road, and is now called Somerton Road. The name 'Green Vale' was not used to refer to this
area, once part of a larger district called Euroke or Yuroke, until about 1868; 8 it came from the
name that Michie's eastern neighbour, John McKerchar, had given to his property.
The first house that the Michies lived in was a small mud brick cottage, long since
demolished, with earth floors that were dampened to keep it compacted, and then covered with
hessian. The walls were whitewashed and it had a hipped roof. 9 Some time later, possibly in
the 1870s, the present homestead was separately erected in front of this cottage, which, with
some weatherboard additions, then became the kitchen because it contained a stove. 10
The present weatherboard homestead is substantially intact and has no architectural
pretensions, appearing instead much like any colonial vernacular farmhouse, with its hip roof
(broken by a valley to cover an uneven plan at the rear) and a deep encircling verandah. The
roof is covered with what are probably the original slate tiles, and the chimneys are rendered.
The verandah is sheeted with corrugated iron, and the timber verandah posts are simply detailed
at the top.
At a later stage, possibly late in the nineteenth century or early in the twentieth century,
the mud-brick cottage was demolished and a separate weatherboard structure, larger in size and
located more directly behind the farmhouse, was erected. This also was used to house the
kitchen (still its function), and some other rooms. It has an M-shaped roofline sheeted with
corrugated iron.
1 'Plan showing the Portions Subdivided in Yuroke, Bulla Bulla and Tullamarine', 1847, Historical
Plan OR Y1, CPO.
2 Much of the historical information comes from Annette Ferguson's well-researched history of the
Greenvale area called 'Greenvale: Links with the past', which was written c.1985. A copy of the
unpublished typescript is held at the Sunbury Regional Library; also Current Parish Plan, Parish of
Yuroke, CPO; also PROV, VPRS 7959/P1, Unit 1, Broadmeadows Road Board Rate Book 1863-
1870.
3 Entry for the Michie family, No.M25480, in VicGold Genealogy Database, Internet URL
http://www.ke.com.au.
4 Ferguson, op.cit., np.
5 Rate Books, op.cit.
6 For example - rates made in 1864, '65 and '66.
7 For example - rates made in 1863, '67 and '68.
8 Rate Books, op.cit.
9 Ferguson, op.cit., np. citing a grandaughter of Michie, Margaret Lofts, who used to live in the
house.
10 From personal conversation with the current owners.

Alexander Michie died in October 1896 and his assets were described in his Probate
papers as 214 acres with a six-roomed weatherboard cottage and outhouses. 11 These
documents also noted that the property was used for grazing purposes only and no area had been
cultivated. Esther remained at the farmhouse until her death in 1911 at the age of 87. Their
daughter, Annie, one of seven children, married a Robert Millar and they lived at a farm called
Springbank (once located in what is now the Attwood area). They moved back into Ballater
Park after Michie's death, changing it from the dairy farm it had always been to a sheep farm.
Their son, Alexander Millar, later rented the adjoining Green Vale property, and in the 1920s
renamed it The Elms. Alexander later moved to Cairn Brae on St.Johns Rd., which had been
built by his uncle, William Michie, but Ballater Park remained in the family. The present
owners are the daughters of Alexander Millar. 12
Along the road travelling east towards Somerton there was once a fair number of these
small farms of some 200 to 400 acres with weatherboard farmhouses, all settled in the 1850s
and 1860s by Scottish and English settlers. Today most are gone. Nothing is said to remain of
Green Vale (or The Elms) the last remains having apparently been torn down recently. 13
Greenan, the farmhouse of McKerchar's brother, Donald, burnt down some years ago leaving
only a bluestone outbuilding as a reminder of its existence. The properties Glen Arthur and
Waltham, situated further east and owned respectively by Joseph Trotman and Robert
Shankland, were destroyed to make way for the Greenvale Reservoir. Others such as Fairview,
owned by John Bond and once located opposite Glen Arthur, have made way for new residential
developments. It seems that the only other weatherboard farmhouse left from this era is the
former Springfield, which is located on what is now called French Road but is altered almost
beyond recognition. Ballater Park is unique in the area in that its farmhouse is still
substantially unaltered from the original, and the land surrounding it is little changed in its parklike
quality, with gum trees dotting the gently undulating landscape.
Recommendations:
It is recommended that Ballater Park homestead and outbuildings be included in the
Heritage Overlay of the Hume Planning Scheme. It is further recommended that the Council
consider the whole property for Significant Landscape Overlay controls.
11 PROV, VPRS 28/P2, Unit 427, Record 352 of Series 60.
12 From personal conversation with the current owners; and Ferguson, op.cit.
13 Information from the present owner of The Elms.