Mawallok Homestead at Stockyard Hill 3373 : Heritage Impact Statement
FOOTSCRAY PARK
Ballarat Road, Footscray 3011
Footscray Park of 15 hectares (37 acres) was permanently reserved in 1911 as a site for
a Public Park and Recreation purposes. The park's creation was largely due to the efforts
of the citizens of Footscray who successfully lobbied the State Government and the
Victorian Racing Club for the reservation of the park, and then contributed to its
development through donations of labour and plants, with the local technical school
building the lookout shelter. The park was designed by noted architect Rodney Alsop
who won a competition for its design 1911. The plan was largely implemented by David
Matthews, Superintendent of Parks and Gardens from 1916 until 1964, with the
assistance of noted orchidologist, William Nicholls. The park features characteristic
structures in an Edwardian style, in particular, rustic stone structures, lookout shelter,
drinking fountains, arbours, bridges, ponds, and clover-shaped flower beds. The park
also has a most unusual and finely carved Platypus Fountain as well as a war memorial
and a memorial to Henry Lawson. The design of Footscray Park fully exploits the
northerly sloping site, providing external vistas to the Maribyrnong River, Flemington
Racecourse and the city. Footscray Park is an important community recreation facility
and hosts two of Melbourne's largest annual events, the Saltwater Festival and the
Vietnamese Festival.
Footscray Park is historically important as an important Edwardian styled garden from
the early twentieth century in Victoria. Designed in 1911 by the prominent architect
Rodney Alsop, the majority of the layout and landscape features occurred under the
direction of David Mathews from 1916 until about 1940. Mathews continued to develop
and care for the Park until his retirement in 1964. The Park is important for its fine
collection of garden structures, ornamental ponds, formal and informal path layout, and a
rich plant collection.
Footscray Park is aesthetically significant for its design excellence. The informal
perimeter pathway, formal central path and steps and terraced garden layout constitute
a particularly fine aesthetic response to the steep topography. An important facet of the
design is the formal pathway whose axis leads to the river and the racecourse beyond.
This park vista is among the finest in Victoria and incorporates a large circular bed with a
rare Blue Hesper Palm and a long Wisteria pergola with a central dome of sophisticated
design. The outstanding landscape character of the park is complemented by the
planting themes of a deciduous tree avenue, palm collection, conifer plantation, water
garden, Australian natives and arboretum.
Footscray Park is important for its scientific (horticultural) achievement in the form of its
outstanding plant collection of palms, trees and shrubs set amongst shrubberies and
lawns. Significant plants due to their outstanding form, rarity and landscape value
include: Brahea armata (Blue Hesper Palm), Angophora hispida (Dwarf apple), Vitex
agnus-castus (Chaste Tree), Ficus microcarpa var.hillii (Hill's Fig), Cupressus macrocarpa
'Hodginsii', Brunsfelsia pauciflora var. calycina and Ulmus glabra 'Exoniensis' (Exeter Elm).
Footscray Park is socially important because of its long, close and continuing relationship
with the citizens of Footscray who campaigned for its creation, contributed significantly
to its development, and continue to use the park as an important community asset.
Because the western suburbs of Melbourne lacked the public parks and gardens
established during the 19th century in other parts of Melbourne, the establishment of
Footscray Park represents a great achievement by the community.
[Victorian Heritage Register Entry H1220]
There is compelling evidence to hand to clearly establish that Rodney Howard Alsop was an
accomplished Arts and Crafts Movement architect with considerable expertise and experience
in the design and landscaping of both private and public gardens in Victoria.
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At the time when Mawallok was erected in 1910, Alsop had already demonstrated his
prowess in this field. As well, Alsop was assisted in his landscape and garden design projects
by the young Dorothy Hope Lockyer, who became his wife in 1912 [BDM Victoria, Marriages
1912 No. 2820]. Dorothy Hope Lockyer was evidently born at Sydney in 1894, daughter of
[Sir] Nicholas Lockyer and his wife Queenie (née Eager). She died at Mount Waverley in
1968 aged seventy-four years [BDM Victoria, Deaths 1968 No. 15392]. As stated above,
her husband died on 26 October 1932 at the age of fifty-one years [BDM Victoria, Deaths
1932 No.2622]. Tibbits states in his ADB entry that Rodney and Dorothy Alsop had issue a
child, who died in 1915, but I cannot as yet find any reference to this child in the Births
Deaths and Marriages Registry, Victoria. This infant may have died interstate.
3.6.6
Alsop Family Records
Relatives of Rodney H. Alsop have long taken an interest in his architectural career.
Architect David H. Alsop, prepared one of the first accounts of the life and architectural
career of his forebear Rodney H. Alsop in an under-graduate architectural history thesis
‘Rodney Howard Alsop, Architect’, Department of Architecture, University of Melbourne,
1970. I have checked with David Alsop, now the Senior Project Officer, Infrastructure
Division, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Melbourne, to see if he
has further information concerning Rodney Alsop’s landscape designs or knowledge of the
existence of any of his landscape plans, but to no avail. He in turn also checked this matter
with Mr. David Cash, now with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, and formerly a
landscape gardener at Mawallok, without success. Both parties evidently rely upon the oftstated claim that William Guilfoyle designed and laid out the homestead garden at Mawallok
after the new residence was built in 1910.
3.7
The Mawallok Garden : A Summary Cultural History
The Mawallok garden, lake, weir and allied parklands have attracted the interest of writers,
correspondents and garden historians in Australia from as early as 1931, when an article
concerning Mawallok Station was first published in Pastoral Homes of Australia in 1931. It is
of some import to this review of the cultural history of Mawallok to note that there is no
reference to William Guilfoyle at all in this article. Facets of the development of Mawallok are
to be found in short articles earlier published in The Pastoral Review, with news of the new
Mawallok woolshed being revealed in the April 1903 issue of this monthly journal.
Fig. 21 ‘The Entrance Gate and Drive to Mawallok Homestead’
[Pastoral Homes of Australia, Volume 3, 1931, p. 3]
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3.7.1
Mawallok in 1931 : The Pastoral Homes of Australia
This comprehensive article entitled ‘Mawallok, Beaufort, Victoria : The Property of Philip
Russell, Esq.’ was published in Pastoral Homes of Australia, The Pastoral Review Company,
Sydney, Volume 3, 1931, pp. 1-12. The setting of the Mawallok homestead in a landscaped
park is described by the correspondent Lionel Arthur Krone, who contributed to the monthly
journal The Pastoral Review under the pen-name ‘Crossley’, as follows:
The property has a splendid water supply from dams, mills and troughing, and fresh
water springs, the main dam, near the homestead, being 550 yards long and forming the
head of a lake, which covers an area of 10 acres. From this dam water is pumped into a
30,000-gallon reservoir built on an elevation, whence it is run down to the house, and
also through small channels, which are fitted with simple valves, to every part of the
gardens. These comprise several acres of beautifully laid out lawns, terraces,
shrubberies, hedges and trees of many kinds, while almost every description of flower
blooms in profusion.
In the midst of these park-like grounds, at the end of a long shaded drive, and
confronted with lush meadows that slope down to the edge of the lake, stands the
Mawallok homestead, a spacious two-storied residence built of reinforced concrete in a
graceful style of architecture, in every sense a luxurious pastoral home. It was erected
soon after the owner’s return from England in 1910, in place of the former bluestone
villa, and contains amongst many features an elaborately fitted workshop, Mr. Russell
being a skilled amateur mechanic. He takes a justifiable pride in everything connected
with the station and its headquarters, which also boasts a large zoological park full of
native fauna. This reserve is alongside the lake, whereon, in summer months, yachting
and other aquatic sports hold sway.
[Pastoral Homes of Australia, Volume 3, 1931, p. 3]
A series of nineteen photographs of the Mawallok homestead by the Melbourne photographer
J. A. Sears, were included in this lengthy and characteristically informative article, with the
views of the c.1910 residence and the longer established homestead buildings, the landscaped
garden, the entrance gates and driveway, the lake and the all-important cattle herds as well as
a view of a sheep muster, providing a valuable insight into the condition of the property at this
time. Of particular interest to this current investigation is the photograph captioned ‘A View
Looking Across the Garden From the Mawallok Homestead’ [p. 5]. This view is taken from the
upper grassed terrace in front of the c.1910 residence from a vantage point close to the
north-east corner of this building.
This view [Fig. 22] is also helpful in establishing the state of the Mawallok garden in 19301931, with the encircling pine trees on the north-west perimeter of the house garden rising to
such a height that they had effectively closed off a number of the vista lines depicted on the
original Mawallok garden plan [Fig. 35]. These trees, which are shown to great effect in an
aerial photograph of the homestead complex [Fig. 32] have been identified by Heritage
Victoria as Monterey Pines and Aleppo Pines [Section 2.1 above].
Whilst the distant Pyrenees mountain range is not recorded in this view of the Mawallok
homestead garden, the lake, with its thicket of trees and shrubs lining the north bank, is
clearly depicted between a narrow gap in the belt of pine trees. Two Canary Island Date palms
[Phoenix canariensis] are shown standing in the open lawns in the positions indicated on the
original landscape plan [Fig. 35]. A number of the maturing trees, shrubs and palms shown in
this view were removed when Alex Russell finally assumed sole control of the property after
the death of his father in April 1937.
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Fig. 22 ‘A View Looking Across the Garden From the Mawallok Homestead’
[Pastoral Homes of Australia, Volume 3, 1931, p. 5]
Fig. 23 ‘A Corner of the Garden’
[Pastoral Homes of Australia, Volume 3, 1931, p. 5]
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Fig. 24 ‘The Rose Garden Taken from the Rockery in November 1930’
[Pastoral Homes of Australia, Volume 3, 1931, p. 4]
Fig. 25 ‘The Pergola Walk in Mawallok Garden’
[Pastoral Homes of Australia, Volume 3, 1931, p. 4]
Examination of a series of recently prepared photographs [ERM August 2008] of the Mawallok
homestead gardens reveals that much of the original detail has now been lost and the garden
setting has been heavily rationalised and the garden beds, borders, paths and plantings have
been very much simplified. In the period between the Wars, many Western District pastoralists
were forced to economise because of the Depression and ever-falling wool prices, and station
staff were heavily rationalised. The numbers of station staff (gardeners, household servants,
butlers, maids, drivers and agricultural labourers) employed were often reduced, and the
owners assumed responsibility for more of the daily tasks required to maintain their
homestead. Elaborately planted garden beds gave way to lawn and new shrubbery and such
appears to be the case at Mawallok in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
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Fig. 26 ‘The Lake at the Foot of the Homestead Garden’
[Pastoral Homes of Australia, Volume 3, 1931, p. 6]
Fig. 27 ‘The Manager’s Cottage’
[Pastoral Homes of Australia, Volume 3, 1931, p. 11]
3.7.2
Date of Construction of the New Residence and Garden
The lengthy article in Pastoral Homes of Australia (1931) also serves to establish an accurate
date of construction for the new concrete house at Mawallok. The author of this article
records that the new house was ‘erected soon after the owner’s return from England in 1910’.
A search of the ‘Index to Unassisted Inward Passenger Lists to Victoria 1852-1923’ held in the
Public Record Office Victoria, reveals that Mr and Mrs Russell returned to Australia aboard the
Norwegian passenger ship S.S. Gneisenau in April 1910 [Fig. 28]. As the information in the
article on ‘Mawallok, Beaufort, Victoria : The Property of Philip Russell, Esq.’ was largely
conveyed directly to the visiting correspondent by Philip Russell, it can be fairly assumed that
the date of construction of the second homestead at Mawallok is actually 1910, not 1908 or
1909 as stated in a number of the seemingly undocumented accounts of the architectural
history of this house [Edquist, p. 86, and Heritage Victoria : Hermes ID 1888]. In the absence
of any tender notices, architect’s correspondence, dated architectural plans or other
construction data, I have opted to assign a date of c. 1910 to the year in which the second
homestead at Mawallok was actually erected, rather than the year that Rodney Alsop likely
prepared the first sketch plans for the approval of Philip and Mary Russell at Mawallok.
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Fig. 29
S.S. Gneisenau [Built in 1903]
Fig. 30 ‘Another View of the House’
[Pastoral Homes of Australia, Volume 3, 1931, p. 3]
Fig. 31 ‘The Mawallok Homestead from the North’
[Pastoral Homes of Australia, Volume 3, 1931, p. 2]
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3.7.3
The Great Gardens of Australia (1976)
Garden historians Howard Tanner and Jane Begg wrote and illustrated The Great Gardens of
Australia in 1976. Mawallok is one of thirty-three gardens discussed in this informative
survey of the most distinctive private gardens in Australia, which comes complete with an
explanation of the development of garden design practices from the time of first European
settlement in this country. In their chapter concerning ‘William Guilfoyle, the Melbourne
Botanic Gardens and the Grand Landscape’, Tanner and Begg observe that:
To the west of Melbourne and Geelong lies the Western District, amongst the richest
agricultural land in Australia, and dominated by large holdings controlled by powerful
families. By the late 1870s, many of these properties had substantial homesteads and
their owners commissioned Guilfoyle to improve their environs.
After discussing Guilfoyle’s work at Werribee Park for the Chirnside brothers in the late
1870s, Tanner and Begg go on to record that:
Perhaps Guilfoyle’s grandest landscape concept is realized in the grounds of ‘Mawallok’,
near Beaufort, for subsequent modification has strengthened the impact. From the
terrace, formal steps lead down to a wide expanse of lawn flanked by clumped trees.
Beyond, across a ha ha [sic] is a grassy sward, used as a golf course, then the lake, and
further again a row of dark pines, broken to provide a view of distant mountains.
[Tanner and Begg, The Great Gardens of Australia, 1976 (1983), p. 41]
Tanner and Begg’s attribution of the Werribee Park mansion garden design to Guilfoyle is
later qualified by Allom Lovell Sanderson Pty Ltd (with Jessie Serle) in their Werribee Park
Metropolitan Park Conservation Analysis prepared for the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board
of Works in 1985, wherein they state, cautiously, that there is no direct evidence to connect
Guilfoyle with the mansion garden as established between 1875 and 1890. Nevertheless,
they find there are stylistic arguments in support of this attribution.
In their brief chapter concerning Mawallok at Beaufort, Tanner and Begg first make reference
to the Mawallok garden as being ‘the English squire’s circumstance enlarged and improved’
and in a ‘landscape grand enough to suggest parallels with the great gardens of Europe’.
High praise indeed and especially so as they later concede that the gardens of Mawallok were
simplified in the 1930s, when Guilfoyle’s ‘beloved palms’ were removed [Tanner and Begg,
The Great Gardens of Australia, 1976 (1983), p. 122]. Five photographs are used to
illustrate the botanical and landscape character of the Mawallok park and homestead gardens,
to include an interesting aerial photograph of the property taken from a north-west vantage
point. This view, of unknown date [c. 1961], is reproduced as Fig. 32 below.
3.7.4
Historic Gardens of Victoria : A Reconnaissance (1978)
A broad history of the design and development of the most important historic gardens in
Victoria, from the time of first European settlement in the 1830s, was prepared by Peter
Watts in Historic Gardens of Victoria : A Reconnaissance, Oxford University Press, 1983. This
publication was the result of a two-year survey and documentation of historic gardens in
Victoria, which was undertaken by Peter Watts from February 1978 under the auspices of
the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) and with the financial support of the Victorian
Government (Garden State Committee). His historic gardens survey work culminated in the
organization of Australia’s first garden history conference at Ripponlea in March 1980 and in
the formation of the Australian Garden History Society at the conclusion of this seminal
gathering.
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Fig. 32 ‘Aerial Photograph : Mawallok Homestead’ n.d.
[Howard Tanner and Jane Begg, The Great Gardens of Australia, 1976 (1983), p. 122]
The garden at Mawallok, Beaufort, was identified in Peter Watt’s keen-eyed reconnaissance of
the State’s horticultural and landscape assets and recorded in Historic Gardens of Victoria as
follows:
Mawallok, Beaufort
Not far from Banongill lies Mawallok. Acquired in 1847 by Alexander Russell and Co.,
Mawallok remained in the hands of the Russell family until 1980. The property is situated
in excellent wool-growing country and is well known for the quality of its pastures, its
fine wool and its cattle. William Guilfoyle was responsible for the design of the 2.8
hectare garden, which includes a typically sweeping lawn on which sentinel-like palms
once stood. The lower right-hand corner of the 1909 plan, where the signature would
normally have appeared, is missing, however. It would not have been surprising if the
plan had been drawn up by another draughtsman under Guilfoyle’s supervision: in 1909
he was under considerable pressure from ill health (and also, to some degree, from public
criticism), and he resigned as Director of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens in September of
that year.
At about the same time the young Melbourne engineer John Monash (who, as General Sir
John Monash was to command the Australian Army Corps in 1918) was commissioned to
extend the existing small dam into a lake deriving from the area’s splendid natural
springs. This water supply ensured that the garden need never suffer drought damage.
It is said that three thousand drayloads of soil were carted in for the garden at Mawallok,
and large numbers of exotic trees (including many conifers) were planted throughout the
property.
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A ha-ha wall constructed in about 1937 between the garden proper and a six-hole golf
course below it has allowed the view from house to lake to be completely unimpeded.
The palm trees included in the plan by Guilfoyle were removed in about 1935. The
narrow and curving path that once formed a walk right round the lawn is now broken, but
the original rockery persists. The garden’s northern vista remains its dominating feature:
a view that covers extensive lawns edged with magnificent trees and shrubs, and carries
the eye across the lake to far-off Mount Cole.
[Peter Watts, Historic Gardens of Victoria : A Reconnaissance, 1983, pp. 144-145]
The entry for Mawallok includes a fine photograph of the garden, looking north to the
distant Mount Cole and the Pyrenees Ranges. This photograph is undated [c. 1930].
Fig. 33
‘Early View of Mawallok Garden’ : Russell Family collection, n.d. (c. 1930)
[in Peter Watts, Historic Gardens of Victoria : A Reconnaissance, 1983, p. 144]
Caption : ‘This early view of the Mawallok garden shows a post and wire fence keeping the grazing
sheep out of the garden; a ha-ha wall served the same purpose from about 1937
-with even less interruption to the vista’
Fig. 34
View Across Lake to Pyrenees Ranges and Mount Cole (2008)
[Source : ERM Australia]
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3.7.5
The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens (2002)
John Patrick, in his entry ‘Mawallok’ in Richard Aitken and Michael Looker (eds), The Oxford
Companion to Australian Gardens, Melbourne, 2002, records that:
MAWALLOK, near Beaufort, Vic., was designed in 1909 by William Guilfoyle for the
Russell family, Western District pastoral pioneers. The residence—by architects
Klingender and Alsop—sits on a terrace overlooking spacious lawns with their edges
irregularly shaped in Guilfoyle’s characteristic manner. The surrounding farmland is
effectively blocked, except for a long vista north to Mount Cole over a ha-ha and a lake,
formed by engineer (Sir) John Monash from a small dam. Palms, a fascination of
Guilfoyle’s mature years, once dotted the lawn. Mawallok is a fine example of his late
work—its Russell family stewardship (until 1980) then careful rejuvenation by Peter and
Jocelyn Mitchell, greatly aided by the survival of Guilfoyle’s plan. Indeed, this garden
served as an important stimulus and inspiration to Jocelyn Mitchell (b. 1937) during her
capable chairmanship of the Australian Garden History Society (1984-1990) and her
early role in Victoria’s (later Australia’s Open) Garden Scheme.
[Aitken and Looker (eds), The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens, 2002, pp. 402-3]
In comparatively recent times, the gardens at Mawallok have been rejuvenated under
landscape architect John Patrick’s direction, with close and informed support from the
current owners of the property. The extent of these works has not been clearly defined in
any reports or papers I have perused to date, and a further review of the scope of this
landscape work should be undertaken in order that the form and plantings in the existing
garden can be compared with the original design and layout of c.1910 and again in the
1930s, when Alex Russell (1892-1961), grazier, soldier, golfer and golf course architect,
made several significant changes to the Mawallok house garden and the broad landscape of
the immediate homestead reserve. In particular, the scope of these works should be further
clarified so that the current status of the five vista lines, as originally delineated on the
undated plan [c. 1909-1910?] can be established.
To date, I have not checked the journal of the Australian Garden History Society for oblique
references to the garden at Mawallok as well as landscape and garden restoration work
undertaken there in the 1980s and 1990s by the current owners [See Index to Australian
Garden History, 1989-2004, 7(6)2 illustration, and 9(2)2]. A photographic survey of the
property, undertaken by ERM Australia in 2008, reveals that the garden as existing accords
both with the broad layout as proposed in the undated landscape plan and with the
photographs published in Pastoral Homes of Australia, Volume 3, 1931 [pp. 1-12].
3.7.6
The Mawallok Homestead Garden : Original Plan
A hand-coloured landscape plan of the Mawallok homestead garden, which records the
proposed design of the garden layout and the intended plantings, has long been held in the
care of the Russell family [Fig. 35]. I understand that the original document is currently in
the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Russell of Barwon Heads, with a coloured copy being
retained by the Mitchell family, current owners of Mawallok. This plan is unsigned, undated,
and otherwise devoid of any title block which may otherwise shed light on both the designer
of this landscape and the delineator of the drawing. For many years now, Peter Watts and
others after him have acknowledged that this drawing is not by William Guilfoyle’s hand,
although the same parties remain convinced that the garden design, as represented on this
coloured plan, is by Guilfoyle. The attribution to Guilfoyle is seemingly entirely based on
stylistic grounds. The Mawallok plan does not appear to be by the hand that prepared the
plan for the ‘remodelling and ornamentation’ of the Colac Botanic Gardens in 1910. This
Colac plan formed part of William Guilfoyle’s report to the Shire of Colac in April 1910.
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It has been reproduced in colour in George Jones, Growing Together : A Gardening History of
Geelong-Extending to Colac and Camperdown, Geelong, 1984, p. iv, colour section. William
Robert Guilfoyle’s drafting style is also clearly recorded in his plan for a ‘Wilderness or Wild
Garden’ for [C. B.] Palmer at his property The Bend near Terang [See Watts, Historic Gardens
of Victoria, p. 43]. This plan is signed ‘WRG’ in the top right-hand corner. No such signature
can be found on the surviving plan for the garden at Mawallok [Fig. 35].
Fig. 35 ‘The Mawallok Homestead Garden : Original Plan’ n.d.
This plan is undated, the author of this landscape plan is unidentified on this surviving document, and
the title block in the bottom right-hand corner, which may have contained the identity of the delineator
and other drawing title particulars, has been removed or lost.
[Original Landscape Plan held by the Russell Family : Copy from Heritage Victoria File 600990]
Guilfoyle’s drawing skills and surviving garden plans by him are discussed in Section 3.8. The
above plan, which shows the five vista centre lines to effect, was first reproduced in Peter
Watts’ Historic Gardens of Victoria : A Reconnaissance, Oxford University Press, 1983, p.
120.
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Fig. 36 ‘The Mawallok Homestead Garden : Original Plan’
A black and white copy of the original plan showing the five vista centrelines, with a later
unsubstantiated annotation by the National Trust of Australia (Victoria)
[Original Landscape Plan held by the Russell Family : Copy from Heritage Victoria File 600990]
Close examination of a near legible, black and white copy of this undated Mawallok plan
reveals annotations which refer to a pre-existing garden bed and other improvements around
the site of the 1910 residence. References to works such as ‘fence to be removed’,
‘suggested alteration’ to the canna bed [tropical plants] and ‘old rose bed to be removed’
point to the likelihood that this original garden plan may have been further annotated
sometime after the c.1910 residence was built and the first house garden around the new
residence had been laid out and the initial plantings were established. There is also reference
to a planting list (now lost) on this drawing, with the beds clearly identified and the plants in
each bed numbered in sequence. This plan also shows a proposed grass tennis court on the
lawns to the north-east of the main terrace.
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A later faint annotation on this drawing shows the site for the tennis court to be at the rear
of the new residence. Aerial photographs confirm that an en-tous-cas tennis court was later
laid down in the amended location. The original lawn tennis court was evidently given over to
croquet. A transparent copy of the original garden plan has been laid over an aerial
photographic image (2008) of the Mawallok homestead garden [Fig. 4], at a similar scale, to
establish the nature and extent of the broad changes (if any) which have been made to the
garden since first established after 1910 [Fig. 37].
Fig. 37 Original Garden Plan (c. 1910-1912) Laid Over an Aerial Image (2004)
[ERM Australia : January 2009]
From the above overlay it can be seen that the driveway into the the entrance courtyard has
been adjusted to connect more directly with the long carriage-way from the Geelong Road.
The courtyard has been imposed over the old carriage-way which led directly to the original
homestead complex which stands to the north-west of the second residence.
Whilst the definition of this overlay does not allow for an intense examination of the garden
beds, it is clear that the current bed layout is different to that originally proposed after the
second residence was erected in c. 1910. The planting beds near to the site of the first
tennis court have been enlarged and extended towards the terrace of the second residence
and the beds to the north-west side of the lawn have likewise been altered. Nevertheless,
the broad form of the existing garden reflects the original garden concept. It is also of
interest to note the position of several of the golf course greens established in the late
1930s by Alex Russell, as these greens appear as light circles on this aerial photograph.
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3.7.7
The Vista Lines : Beyond the Homestead Reserve
The orientation of each of the five vista lines, which are shown on this plan, and which
emanate from the centre of the raised terrace in front of the new c.1910 residence, is of
some interest to this current heritage impact statement. Each of the five lines on the
original plan is marked as a ‘centre line vista’, with the view sweep between the vista
extremities ranging over approximately 64 degrees. It is not clear from any annotations on
the original garden plan if these vista lines relate to internal homestead site features such as
the 1909 lake within the Mawallok homestead reserve, or are otherwise oriented beyond the
boundaries of the homestead reserve to bring distant landscape features such as the
Pyrenees Ranges and specific mountain peaks such as Mount Langi Ghiran, Mount Cole, Mount
Lonarch and Granite Hill into view. It is possible that these vista lines reflect a combination
of these two objectives.
In the course of preparing this heritage impact statement, I have arranged to have each vista
line overlaid on a recent aerial photographic image of the Mawallok Homestead site (2008)
[Fig. 37]. This work has been undertaken by Environmental Resources Management Australia
[ERM] in accordance with my instructions. Each of the five vista centre lines were traced
from the original garden plan. They were then overlaid on the aerial photograph using the
terrace orientation and a transparency of the original garden plan as a guide [Fig. 38]. In the
absence of accurate cadastral survey data relating to the orientation of the principal axes of
the second homestead, spatial data and the 2008 aerial image were then used to broadly
orient these five vista lines, which were then extrapolated on a spatial plan of the region.
Fig. 38 Calculation of the Angles of the Vista Centre Lines (ERM Overlay)
[The red lines are vista lines, the yellow line represents the central axis of the Residence]
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Mawallok Homestead at Stockyard Hill 3373 : Heritage Impact Statement
Fig. 39 ‘View Lines to Elevated Locations’ [Version 1 : ERM Australia 12 January 2009]
The views to actual elevated landforms are shown in red. The vistas traced from the original garden
plan are shown in blue.
Fig. 40 ‘View Lines to Elevated Locations’ [Version 2 : ERM Australia 12 January 2009]
The views to actual elevated landforms are shown in red. The vistas traced from the original garden
plan are shown in blue.
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Mawallok Homestead at Stockyard Hill 3373 : Heritage Impact Statement
The five vista lines were then rotated in the same ranges as they were traced from the
original garden plan all to check if some or all of these ‘centre line vista’ axes aligned with
identified landmarks to the north of Mawallok. The results of this rotation of the axes over a
spatial plan of the broad landscape to the north of the Mawallok Pre-emptive Right are shown
at Figs. 39 and 40. Whilst the results of this investigation are subject to broad
interpretation, there is a distinct possibility that the five vista centre lines as oriented in Fig.
40 [Version 2] were set out to coincide with the peaks of Lookout Hill, Mount Cole and
Mount Lonarch, with the two extreme vista lines accounting for the extremities of the new
lake in the foreground. It is recorded without equivocation that the Mawallok weir and lake
were completed around April 1909, so it can be assumed that the designer of the homestead
garden knew of the dimensions of this waterway before the garden was planned and laid out
in front of the new concrete residence.
3.7.8
The Vista Lines : Within the Homestead Reserve
When the five vista lines are correctly oriented with the longitudinal axis of the c.1910
residence and then accurately plotted over an aerial photograph of the homestead site, it can
be seen that the three inner vista axes range over the Mawallok lake to distant peaks, whilst
the outer vista lines capture the full width of the waterway when viewed from the elevated
terrace in front of the house. There is every likelihood that, in consideration of the axes
shown in Fig. 41, the designer of the Mawallok garden set out the inner garden so as to
preserve both the foreground prospects of the lake and the extended views to the distant
Pyrenees rangers and the soft peaks of Lookout Hill, Mount Cole and Mount Lonarch. Years
later the full extent of this broad vista was captured in a photograph taken from the
Mawallok terrace around 1930 [See Fig. 33 above].
Fig. 41 ‘View Lines Across Internal Site Features’ [ERM Australia 14 January 2009]
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ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIAN
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Mawallok Homestead at Stockyard Hill 3373 : Heritage Impact Statement
3.8
William Robert Guilfoyle (1840-1912) : Landscape Gardener and Botanist
William Robert Guilfoyle, the enigmatic landscape gardener and botanist, is near universally
credited with the design of the new garden around the 1910 residence at Mawallok, although
there is scant evidence currently to hand to confirm any enduring professional association
between Guilfoyle and Philip Russell as the owner of Mawallok. R. T. M. Pescott, a former
director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, has prepared the only in-depth account
of the life and work of W. R. Guilfoyle in W. R. Guilfoyle 1840-1912 : The Master of
Landscaping, OUP, 1974. Curiously, there is only one brief reference to the Mawallok garden
in Pescott’s biography, wherein he states that:
A complete list of the gardens which Guilfoyle designed for some of the larger property
owners in the Western District of Victoria may never be compiled, but it may be helpful
to later researchers to note a few. At Beaufort there is ‘Mawallok’; at Birregurra
‘Mooleric’ and ‘Turkeith’; at Camperdown ‘Newminster Park’ and ‘Renny Hill’; at Noorat
‘Dalvui’; at Skipton ‘Carranballac’ and ‘Mooramong’; and finally, ‘Wooriwyrite’ at Terang’.
[W. R. Guilfoyle 1840-1912 : The Master of Landscaping, 1974, p. 141]
Peter Watts, in Historic Gardens of Victoria, 1983, further records that:
Many of the great pastoral fortunes had been made by the 1870s. Landholders
abandoned the modest dwellings that had replaced the first huts and set about building
the enormous stone and brick homesteads which are especially prevalent in the Western
District. Some of the owners engaged professional designers—Edward La Trobe Bateman
at Wooriwyrite and at Chatsworth House (Chatsworth), and Guilfoyle at Dalvui (Noorat),
Mawallok (Beaufort), The Bend (Terang), Mooleric and Turkeith (Birregurra), and probably
at Banongill (Skipton).
Whilst Guilfoyle’s involvement with the gardens at Dalvui, The Bend and Mooleric is now well
established, his association (if any) with Mawallok is equivocal, and his connection with
Turkeith at Birregurra is now denied. Pescott’s claim that Guilfoyle designed the Wooriwyrite
garden has similarly been denied by Timothy Hubbard in his Ph.D thesis ‘Towering Over All’
(2003). Despite Pescott’s claim, Edward La Trobe Bateman has long been credited with the
landscape concept for Thomas Shaw’s Wooriwyrite, even though the house garden was
created well before the two-storey bluestone mansion was built in 1886 to designs by Colac
architect Alexander Hamilton (1825-1901). Bateman’s landscape plan survives to the
present at Wooriwyrite to confirm the authorship of this garden.
The life and career of William Robert Guilfoyle has also been succinctly recorded by Alan
Gross in his biographical portrait 'Guilfoyle, William Robert (1840-1912)' in Australian
Dictionary of Biography, Volume 4, Melbourne University Press, 1972, pp 307-308. This
entry reads as follows:
GUILFOYLE, WILLIAM ROBERT (1840-1912), landscape gardener and botanist, was born
on 8 December 1840 at Chelsea, England, son of Michael Guilfoyle (d.1884),
nurseryman, and his wife Charlotte, née Delafosse, of Huguenot origin. His father
migrated to Sydney with his family in 1853 and set up a nursery at Redfern; another at
Double Bay was more successful. After private teaching by his uncle, Louis Delafosse,
William attended Lyndhurst College, Glebe, and was encouraged in botanical study by
William Sharp Macleay and John MacGillivray. He made several tours in northern New
South Wales and Queensland collecting specimens, some of which he sent to Ferdinand
von Mueller in Melbourne to be identified. In 1868 he joined the scientific staff of H.M.S.
Challenger in its scientific expedition through the South Sea Islands, and then grew sugar
and tobacco on his father's land near the Tweed River. On 21 July 1873 Guilfoyle was
appointed curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, at a salary of £500.
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His predecessors, Dallachy and von Mueller, had been more interested in developing the
gardens for scientific than aesthetic and recreational purposes. Guilfoyle, inspired by the
tropical landscapes he had seen, extended and remodelled the gardens. When he
designed an extension he made a coloured sketch of his conception and then by a
process of improvement brought it to the planting stage. Sweeping lawns, cunningly
planned foliage and informal vistas filled the area which was expanded to over one
hundred acres (40 ha).
When the south bank of the Yarra was straightened to prevent floods Guilfoyle secured
the adjoining section and transformed a billabong into a series of lakes. He created a
fern gully in a hollow and on a hill overlooking the Yarra built a Temple of the Winds as a
memorial to Charles La Trobe, founder of the gardens. The temple was designed in the
classical tradition but instead of the usual acanthus motif Guilfoyle used the native
staghorn fern. He also designed several summer houses or kiosks. Paderewski, who
planted an American red chestnut to mark his visit on 26 October 1904, remarked that
Guilfoyle did with his trees what a pianist tried to do with his music. Conan Doyle
claimed that the gardens were 'absolutely the most beautiful place' that he had ever
seen.
Guilfoyle also managed the 62 cultivated acres (25 ha) of the Government House land
and 156 acres (63 ha) in the outer Domain. He also designed private gardens; probably
the best known is at Coombe Cottage, Dame Nellie Melba's home at Coldstream, near
Lilydale. Melbourne's Botanic Gardens had gained world-wide repute before Guilfoyle
retired in September 1909. He then lived at Jolimont and is credited with the attractive
treatment of the creek which runs through Fitzroy Gardens. In 1890-91 and 1896 he
visited England and Europe. Guilfoyle did not neglect botanical studies in order to
indulge his genius for landscape gardening. He started the medicinal ground in the
gardens and also grew plants of economic value.
His publications included First Book of Australian Botany (1874), revised and reissued as
Australian Botany Especially Designed for the Use of Schools (1878); The A.B.C. of
Botany (1880); Australian Plants (1911?) and many pamphlets. Guilfoyle died on 25
June 1912 at East Melbourne, survived by his wife Alice, née Darling, whom he had
married at Melbourne in 1888 and by their only son William James. His brother John was
curator of the reserves under the Melbourne Metropolitan Parks and Gardens Committee
in 1891-1909.
Select Bibliography
F. Clarke, In the Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, 1938; P. C. Morrison (ed), Melbourne's
Garden, Melbourne, 1946; J. H. Maiden, ‘Records of Australian Botanists’, Journal and
Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Volume 55, 1921, pp 150-169;
Australasian, 17 Jan 1891; Age (Melbourne), 26 June 1912; Argus (Melbourne), 26 June
1912; information from Royal Botanic Gardens & National Herbarium, Melbourne.
[Alan Gross, 'Guilfoyle, William Robert (1840-1912)', Australian Dictionary of Biography,
Volume 4, Melbourne University Press, 1972, pp 307-308]
The endeavours of William Guilfoyle in private practice clearly warrants further detailed
investigation. Undoubtedly, Guilfoyle had a profound influence on the development of what
he described as the ‘English landscape’ style of gardening in both public and private domains
in Victoria, but the full extent of his contribution to the development of country estate
gardens is still only loosely documented. A further review of Guilfoyle’s involvement (if any)
in the design and horticultural development of the gardens at Mawallok is clearly warranted, if
only to confirm the recent Heritage Victoria findings in this matter [See Section 2.1 above].
Recent research by columnist and garden historian Anne Latreille has established that,
despite a long-standing attribution, William Guilfoyle did not design the splendid garden at
Turkeith near Birregurra for the Ramsay family [personal communication December 2008].
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Mawallok Homestead at Stockyard Hill 3373 : Heritage Impact Statement
Eve Almond, in her entry for William Guilfoyle in Richard Aitken and Michael Looker (eds), The
Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens, Melbourne, 2002, pp. 280-282, notes that:
Guilfoyle’s landscape skills lay in his ability to combine the public’s demand for a
picturesque ‘pleasure garden’ with the scientific requirements of a well laid-out labelled
Botanic Garden where individual plants could be seen to advantage, as in the
Gardenesque style.
[The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens, Melbourne, 2002, p. 282]
In a further observation of Guilfoyle’s accomplishments, Almond has further recorded that:
In addition, Guilfoyle designed a number of private country gardens. Those with
unequivocal evidence of his involvement include Derriweit Heights, Mount Macedon (prior
to 1896, destroyed by bush fires in 1983), Dalvui, Terang (1898), Mooleric, Birregurra
(1903-10), Turkeith, Birregurra (1905-06), Banool, Yarra Glen (c. 1905), and Mawallok,
Beaufort (1909). Presumably he also laid out the garden for his own country property,
Mount Yule, at Healesville. A number of city gardens have also been attributed to him,
but all require further verification.
[The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens, Melbourne, 2002, pp. 280-282]
At the present time, there is not even a contemporary note or planting schedule to hand to
confirm that William Guilfoyle laid out and planted the garden at Mawallok. If any such
document exists, it is evidently not known to reputable garden historians such as Peter
Watts, R. T. M. Pescott, and Eve Almond, let alone heritage organisations such as the
National Trust of Australia (Victoria) and Heritage Victoria. As well, John Patrick, the
landscape architect recently involved with conservation works at Mawallok, has advised the
writer that he is not aware of any documentation that conclusively proves that Guilfoyle
designed the garden around the Russell homestead [personal communication 8 January
2009].
The long-standing assignation to Guilfoyle is based on a stylistic analysis of the original
garden plan and the extant plantings in the Mawallok garden. Yet other accomplished
landscape designers also practiced in the English Picturesque and Gardenesque modes around
the time that the Mawallok garden was first planted, and engaged in the same landscaping
practices as Guilfoyle. Rodney Alsop was adept at promoting the use of palms in his garden
plans, both public and private, after 1905, when he won his first suburban garden design
competition, and others of his ilk followed garden design traditions firmly established by
William Guilfoyle in Victoria after 1879.
For many years now, the cultural significance of the Mawallok garden has been considerably
enhanced by the perceived association with William Guilfoyle, despite the lack of conclusive
evidence in this regard. The statement of significance prepared by Heritage Victoria relies to
a great extent on this association, with the recent finding that:
Mawallok, with its extensive windbreak plantings, hedges, stones walls, gateways, drives,
gravel courtyard, its Guilfoyle garden, lake and views to Mt Cole, is amongst the finest
and largest gardens in Victoria. William Guilfoyle, arguably Australia greatest garden
designer, laid out the Royal Botanic Gardens from 1873-1909. Mawallok is his last
known, and perhaps his grandest, homestead garden design, completed towards the end
of his remarkable career.
Doubts about the authorship of the Mawallok garden design should be resolved, as research
undertaken in the course of preparing this heritage impact statement has identified Rodney
Howard Alsop as an alternative and highly eligible candidate for this undoubted plaudit.
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