History Behind A Hedge Awaits Bulldozer
The Age
Wednesday July 29, 1998
Just as fictional Lucy stumbled through the fir trees at the back of the professor's wardrobe into Narnia, Kevin Murray stumbled through a thick hedge in Camberwell in 1993 and found his great-grandfather's home.
Until then, no one, not even the Boroondara Council, knew the house existed. Built in the 1870s, it had sat concealed by the hedge behind the late Dr Ellen Craig's Edwardian home for most of this century.
But the farmhouse, cocooned safely for so long, is to be demolished.
Although it is classified by the National Trust this year as having regional importance, the Boroondara Council issued a demolition permit on Monday.
Kevin Murray shrugs. It's not the outcome he wanted. ``It's very sad to see the last tantalising, historic evidence of one's ancestors bulldozed."
The brick, seven-roomed farmhouse was built by Will Murray and his wife, Mary Ann, on the nine-hectare Camberwell farm they bought in 1853 for 44. Will, who was 13 when he arrived with his Scottish family in Melbourne in 1842, had 11 children with Mary Ann, who had made her own way to Melbourne from Somerset after suffering the indignities of being raised an illegitimate child.
The Murrays grew fruit and vegetables and cut hay for city horses.
Kevin Murray, in his family history, says Will Murray's children would have walked home from school up the Burke Road hill before turning right into Murray's Road - which later became Prospect Hill Road, named after their farm.
The Murrays sold their farm in 1881 after the railway reached Camberwell; with white-collar workers seeking suburban homes along new rail lines, the land had become too valuable to farm. Will Murray, then in his late 40s, moved west to clear and farm land at Trafalgar with his sons.
The architect James Gall bought and subdivided the farm. The block on which the Murray farmhouse stood, on the corner of what is now Prospect Hill Road and Lorne Grove, was bought as a wedding present by James Law for his daughter Alice, and a fine Edwardian house, Conara, was built for her. Alice had one daughter, Ellen, who lived in Conara until she died last year - the farmhouse sitting empty behind her, surrounded by peppercorns, spring bulbs and old fruit trees. Conara and the farmhouse were sold last year for $2.3million and the site has been subdivided into four blocks.
Before the farmhouse is demolished, it has to be documented, and parts of the old farmhouse included in the new home planned for the site. A plaque describing the site's history must also be erected.
A council spokesman could not be reached for comment.
© 1998 The Age