Vine Manager's House

Statement of Significance

The Glen Hardy Winery site has high historic significance for the Shire and Glen Forrest Forrest community as part of an historic precinct with associated terraced former grape growing hillsides, dry stone walls and vineyard house on the opposite side of the valley, the Helena River Nursery and the public 'footpath' along the unmade section of Hardey Road south to the Helena River.

Physical Description

The ruins of the Glen Hardey winery buildings are located on the east side of Chittawarra Brook valley several hundred metres above the road. What remains is not significant aesthetically for what was an attractive complex before being burnt by bushfire in 1978. They still may have some scientific or archaeological significance in their associations with the early wine industry in the State and the nature of the configuration of the building which used changes in level to utilise gravity to facilitate siphoning from one stage of the process to the next. Whilst less significant now as a an individual building, the winery site, collectively forms an historic precinct with associated terraced former grape growing hillsides, dry stone walls and vineyard house on the opposite side of the valley, the Helena River Nursery (see Site 278), and the public 'footpath' along the unmade section of Hardey Road south to the Helena River.

History

One of the first commercial vineyards in the hills area, the 100 acre (40 hectare) Chittawarra Brook property known as "Glen Hardey Vineyard", was established in September 1882, by Richard Watson Hardey. He was the son of Joseph Hardey, who in 1830, came to Western Australia on the "Tranby", with a group of fervent Wesleyan Yorkshiremen and their families. The Hardey family of Peninsula Farm (now the National Trust property Tranby House) were well known in the Maylands area. After being educated and working in England, Richard Hardey returned to Western Australia in 1866, and a year after his father's death in 1875, became a member of the Legislative Council. For more than twenty years, he was Chairman of the Perth Districts Road Board. The wine growing potential of the ironstone-gravel soils of Smiths Mill (Glen Forrest) would have appealed to Hardey, and when the Eastern Railway contract was completed in March 1884, he was able to transport his grapes to the Maylands presses and vats. By c. 1897, excessive transport costs forced Hardey to build a brick fermenting house and cellars at "Glen Hardey". The building utilized the sloping ground to gravity feed the wine making process and the breezes over the hilly terrain to cool the building. Until his death in c. 1910, Hardey employed a series of managers who stayed in his house. There are now few traces of this original home and the present residence is believed to date from c. 1912, when it was built by the Wood family. It was extensively re-modelled in 1948. Around 1901, while Henry Kiesewetter was Manager, the winery is said to have produced more than 60,000 litres of wine a year from the 10 acres of white and 25 acres of red wine grapes. When Richard Hardey died in c. 1910, the subsequent owners included, W.T. Wood and his son Horace, the Poles and Walter James who is said to have made the last wine at Glen Hardey in c. 1946. In 1948, Mr. A.C. Summers became the owner. He picked Glen Hardey's last grape crop in 1949, and sent it for processing to the Valencia Vineyard in the Swan Valley. Soon after this, bushfires destroyed the vines. Despite deterioration, the winery buildings remained a local landmark until April 1978, when the fires caused by Cyclone Alby destroyed any chance of restoration.

Integrity/Authenticity

Integrity: very low

Condition

Ruins

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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