Rockbeare Park was leased by Heidelberg Shire to McLosky's riding school for agistment of horses until around 1974.B&W photograph showing horses grazing in the Park. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.

B&W photograph of Phil Course, approximately 1974. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.

B&W photograph This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.

B&W photograph This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.

Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.

Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.

Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.Annotated on back [Opening of 1st Ranger's Hut 1980 showing roof of hut below. Rockbeare Park. photograph L. Course] Opened by Rupert Hamer, Premier Victoria.

Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.Annotated on back [Opening of 1st Ranger's Hut 1980. Rockbeare Park with city in background.] Opened by Rupert Hamer , Premier Victoria.

Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.Annotated on back [Preparations Ranger's Hut Rockbeare Park 1980]

Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.Annotated on back [Opening of Ranger's Hut 1980. Sir Rupert Hamer on left]

Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.Getting ready to build.

Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.Annotated on back [1980 Sir Rupert Hamer (then Premier of Vic) looking south from near top of Rockbeare Park Hill] L to R Sir Rupert Hamer, Bruce Skeggs, Michael Oxer

Rupert Hamer, Premier of Victoria.Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.

Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.Opened by Rupert Hamer, Premier Victoria.

Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.

Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.Annotated on back [Work on driveway to 1st Ranger's Hut Rockbeare Park 1980]

Colour photograph. This item and all other Darebin Parklands Association archival material is now held by State Library Victoria (Accession No: YMS 13746). Please contact State Library Victoria if access is required.Annotated on back [Start of 1st Ranger's Hut Rockbeare Park 1980]

The Wreck of Hope (Long-nosed Common Dolphin skeleton, Delphinus delphis) featured as part of the exhibition Anatomy Lessons, shown at the National Wool Museum in 2024. The exhibition featured meticulously-sculpted, life size skeletons, making visitors question their place in this web of the living and the dead. From a towering giraffe stretching 4.4 metres in height, to an army of over 50 delicately rendered frogs, this exhibition was enthralling in scale. Each sculpture is an accurate portrayal of a real animal and is carefully measured, drawn, and moulded from steel, wire, and foam. The frame is then intricately knitted over to create these thought-provoking pieces. Each sculpture tells a story, one of the collection of animals by museums and collectors, of Western safari hunters, of human encroachment, and of the often-sad role of the animals in our lives. These underlying concepts are explored and reflected by the materials used. Wool, that speaks of warmth, of comfort, of care, meets the size, grace, and sheer breathtaking beauty of the pieces, clashing with the hard and complex stories beneath. This knitted dolphin skeleton was the start of Beevor's interest in comparative anatomy. Beevors recalls viewing a dolphin, one of many skeletons alongside a mouse and a lion in the Australian Museum's collection during a school visit in the 1970s. At the time, school children watched TV reruns of 'Flipper', which portrayed dolphins as intelligent and noble animals. Elsewhere, the conservation movement was growing, and appeals to protect marine mammals were gaining momentum through the 'Save the Whales' campaign. The fascination with live dolphin shows had grown throughout the 1960s and 1970s and the ethics began to be questioned. Some believe they played an important role in raising public awareness of cetaceans and their welfare. Others argued the performances glorified the dominance of heroic trainers over the subordinate dolphin, and offered little education about the dolphins' natural characteristics nor prioritised their welfare. Many of these facilities are now closed and all dolphin species are protected by international accords aimed at conserving wild populations. Despite this dolphins are still at risk of swallowing plastic waste, mercury toxicity, toxoplasmosis, boat impacts and being bycatch in commercial fishing operations. Originally from Australia, Michele Beevors has been practicing in New Zealand for the last 20 years. She is Head of Sculpture at Dunedin School of Art, Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand’s oldest, and one of its most prestigious, art schools. Beevors has exhibited in galleries, museums, and exhibition spaces in across New Zealand, Australia and Vienna with art that is defiant, unconventional, and moving.Life sized knitted skeleton of a dolphin, with white wool and internal steel, foam and wire frame. The dolphin is mounted on a wooden base, made from a desk, with books placed under the desk lid. The books and desk are painted black.knitting, art, dolphin, conservation, sculpture, skeletons, anatomy lessons, michele beevors

This book contains information on historic French nails and fixings, being translations from the French Masters compared and contrasted to the Anglo-American tradition. It has been compiled by Chris How, a retired Civil/Structural Engineer who lives in Warrnambool, Victoria. He has been involved with conservation and heritage buildings for half a century and it was working with pioneer materials and techniques that first stimulated his interest in historic nails. He has completed a Master’s degree in England and made a special study of French and Germanic framing and its spread across Europe. This involved similar studies in Denmark, Belgium, the Baltic countries and Australia. This book is of interest because it was written by a local Warrnambool resident, one who has researched and studied many buildings in Warrnambool and district through an examination of the building materials used, especially the nails and fixings. This is a soft cover book of 126 pages The cover is grey with a grey, black and white sketch on the front cover and a colour photograph on the back page. The book has contents pages, a list of tables and figures, a list of the source of illustrations and credits, a foreword, acknowledgements, a preface, eight chapters, a glossary of terms and appendices. There are many black and white and colour illustrations. chris how, history of nails, history of warrnambool

Plum Cottage is covered by Heritage Overelay HO256 in the Nillumbuk Planning Scheme This two-lot land holding was created as a subdivision and sold to Charles Stuart McNeil by May 1955. Sometime in the period 1955-1960, the builder-designer, John Harcourt had created a pise house on the site, straddling the two subdivision lots. The designer, John M. Harcourt was a pioneer builder in pise-de-terre and mudbrick in the Eltham Shire, Eltham being synonymous with alternative lifestyles and building practises until the onset of suburbia in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This hipped-roof house is set high above Main Road on a V-shape plan characteristic of the Arts & Crafts style, with rammed earth or pise walls, timber joinery and a cement tiled roof. The V shape plan was used by important English and Eltham Arts & Crafts designers. The use of natural materials such as stone and timber construction is an essential part of the Arts & Crafts style and Harcourt’s work. So too is the application of the style on both the exterior and interior of the house as a holistic concept. The house adjoins the Lim Joon adobe house built and designed by Alistair Knox in the same era (HO119), thus forming a distinctive pair, both using an uncommon plan form. This house was identified in the Shire of Shire of Eltham Heritage 1992 as contributory to the Eltham Gateway Conservation Area, then proposed as an urban conservation area (now Heritage Overlay Area). Land Ownership Emily Jane Smith of 12 Woodside Street Fitzroy owned Crown Allotments 1 & 2 Sections 14, 27 by August 1918, selling to William Henry Smith of 12 Woodside Street, Nth Fitzroy May 1921. (John) James Isherwood of Main Road, Eltham owned the property by 1928 (the year of his death) with the beneficiary of his estate and next owner of this site being his widow, Minnie Maria Isherwood of Cemetery Road, Eltham. His holding in Main Road included parts of what was described in rate records as allotments1 & 2 Section E6. In the late 1930s, early 1940s her son Alfred John Isherwood was also rated for the land around this site, with the rated nett annual value varying between £2 and £5. Alfred Isherwood also lived at Main Road, Eltham with his wife Ellen: her early death at the age of 24 was reported in the Argus of 1923. Part of the Isherwood land was divided off and sold to Charles Stuart McNeil by May1955. Sometime in the period 1955-1960, the builder-designer, John Harcourt had created a pise house on the site, straddling the two subdivision lots. The house is visible on an aerial photograph from 1960s. Reputedly the house was called Plum Cottage and erected for Harcourt’s mother-in-law. A garage was added in 1959. Charles McNeil died in1971 aged 87: he was the son of Don McNeil and Margaret Arkell. Available rate records from the construction era start in the of the 1970s (1972-3) and list Mr H.C. & M/S A.V. Charity at 616 Main Road Eltham of this property with a nett annual value of $740. More recent valuer's data describes the property as lots 1 & 2 LP25668, located in the Central Riding of Eltham Shire, owned by Ann Valerie Charity and later, in 1990, by the Chincarini family. Building Description This hipped roof 11 .5 square house is set high above Main Road on a characteristic-shape plan and has rammed earth or pise walls, timber joinery and a cement tiled roof. The V-shape plan was used by Important designers such as C.F.A. Voysey (UK) who interpreted medieval domestic architecture as part of the Arts & Crafts style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The pise walls are covered with a textured render while the cement roofing tiles are also seen in the Harcourt Hill examples. Reputedly the ceiling joists are of a deep section and span long lengths with no need for hanging beams in the roof space. The ceilings are low and panelled in main rooms with apparently Caneite soft board infill panels between the exposed ceiling beams. These are painted white but may have been stained at one time. The focus of the house is the large living area with its vast random stone fireplace. Significance Plum Cottage is significant to the locality of Eltham because: Historically: • Plum Cottage is closely associated with the important historical theme of earth construction evident in Eltham and elsewhere in the Shire since theear1y Arts & Crafts inspired creations at Penleigh Boyd's The Robins (1912, HO101) and those at Montsalvat (1934-, HO82) but more prominent from the Second War period when earth building in Eltham was promoted in national periodicals as an alternative building method that avoided the building materials shortages of that era; • The choice of the earth building technique also expresses the theme of refuge or alternative living, synonymous with Eltham in the early to mid 20th century; • as a good example of domestic architecture from John Harcourt who was the first major post Second War figure in an important phase of Eltham’s earth building development, using his characteristic Old English or Arts& Crafts style that relies in this case on the pise wall construction, pitched roof forms, exposed ceiling joists, half timbering, random stonework, and panelled internal wall finishes. Architecturally: • Plum Cottage's pise wall construction is uncommon among the early earth-walled structures in the Shire, that are mainly of adobe or mud brick, and as a building material is uncommon among the Shire’s suburban dwellings generally which are clad typically with either fired clay bricks or timber boarding. Aesthetically: • Plum Cottage is a good and well preserved example of a modern Old English or Arts & Crafts style earth-walled building in the Shire • For the proximity of the significant Lim Joon adobe house designed by Alistair Knox adjoining to the north, providing a distinctive earth wall house pair, with uncommon plan forms. Reference Heritage Assessment of Plum Cottage, 616 Main Road, Eltham; Graeme Butler & Associates 2010main road, eltham, property, houses, (john) james isherwood, alfred john isherwood, ann valerie charity, arts and crafts style, charles stuart mcneil, chincarini family, eltham gateway zone, emily jane smith, h.c. charity, heritage assessment, john harcourt, john m. harcourt, lim joon house, main road eltham, minnie maria isherwood, pise construction, plum cottage