Place: Ballater Park - Hume City Council

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.