St Erney's Homestead

Statement of Significance

Representativeness, Aesthetic, Rarity, Social, Scientific and Historic

Physical Description

St Erney’s Homestead is located west of Wheatley Coast Road at the end of Parsons Road, approximately 2.28 km from the highway. Set in a pine forest clearing, the homestead is an unusual and aesthetically pleasing composition of two elements, a pise construction Federation Bungalow gable roof building with a later Group Settlement house of timber. At the time of construction in 1908-09 mud bricks were commonly used, while pise was a rarely used technique in the State. The walls are built up in stages with a footing and first stage of pise terminating at a sand and bitumen damp proof course. The upper walls are raised over the damp proof course in stages to plate height. The gable walls are framed with split jarrah shingle cladding. The roof to this section is painted galvanized corrugated iron with rolled ridges. The house has floors and ceilings of jarrah, with casement windows and framed ledge and braced doors. A timber framed lean-to carport is attached to the northern wall. A former Group Settlement timber house with an iron roof was added at the south side in 1945, opening to the original house via an existing door. This section is a rectangular plan, gable and hipped roof four-room building also in the Federation Bungalow style. The surrounding verandahs are partly filled in to provide a further two rooms. Windows to the filled in verandah are double hung sashes. The walls are lined with painted weatherboards. To the west of the main house is a timber framed former single men’s quarter, used for storage. The homestead is surrounded by plantation pines, with a single Monkey Puzzle Pine/Bunya Pine (Auracaria auracana) located just outside the fenced area to the north east. In the garden are some significant plants and trees, including some Pepper Trees, Apple, Lemon, Weeping Willow, Kurrajong and liquid amber.

History

St Erney’s Homestead is located in the Warren District which was first settled in the late 1850s and 1860s by pioneer families like the Muirs, Clarkes, Mottrams, Wheatleys and Blechyndens. After the Homestead Act was passed in 1893, allowing settlers to select a free homestead farm to a maximum of 160 acres, there was a new wave of European settlers to the district. In 1898 the railway reached Bridgetown . C1908-09 Thomas Harris Parsons took up land to farm with his wife and three sons in the Upper Warren district. They each took up a homestead block of 160 acres. Together they also took up 1,000 acres on Conditional purchase, selecting good country at the confluence of three tributaries of the Warren River. Thomas Parsons then built a homestead which was named St Erney’s after St Erney Church at Landrake, Cornwall, where his wife, Edith, had been christened in 1850. By 1910 three rooms had been built, with substantial walls of pise construction on a mixture of clay, sand and ironstone foundation. A verandah and the entrance were built on the north side and skillion rooms at the south. The veranda on the north side no longer exists, and the skillion rooms were removed to make way for additions in 1945. In 1910 the railway reached Manjimup, leading to further development in the surrounding district, including the Upper Warren District. In May 1917, following the death of Thomas Parsons, his wife, Edith took over possession of the farm. The Parsons family continued to work the farm with Harold Edward Parsons and his wife (formerly a Wheatley) and family occupying the homestead. Harold’s wife established and maintained a beautiful garden around the homestead . Edith Parsons died in June 1837 and the family continued to work the farm and live there. In 1945 major additions were carried out. The addition was formerly a 1930s timber framed group settler cottage, moved from a location in Northcliffe. Harold Parsons moved to Manjimup in the 1950s, but his son Stanley and his family continued to work the farm and live in the house until 1979. Records show that St Erney’s changed ownership in 1979, and in 1985 was taken over by the Conservator of Forests as part of the extension of the Forests Department pine planting programme in the South West. In August 1972 Stanley Parsons had requested that the place be assessed by the National Trust. The place was recorded by the Trust in Dec 1972 and much later, in August 1985, was classified by the National Trust. St Erney’s was entered on the Interim Register of the State Register of Heritage Places on 24 January 1994. On 10 July 1997, the place was included in the Shire of Manjimup Municipal Heritage Inventory. The place is no longer used as the homestead of a farm, but is tenanted as a house.

Integrity/Authenticity

Integrity: Very Good Authenticity: Very Good

Condition

Fair

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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