"This item was found in a suitcase of rubbish along Axe Creek Road, Longlea, in the mid 1970s. It has been stored in my photo album ever since. Code's had a property along Axe Creek/McIvor Highway and there is a Code's Lane there now. Anecdotal, and possibly quite untrue, they had a vineyard and were wiped out by phylloxera." ( Rodney Edwards, donor, 26th August 2024) One page document, parchment colour. Written across of document 'Borough of Raywood". Letter signed by Jacob Philip Balk Mayor, November 13th. 1888, outlining the employment details for Frederick George Code as 'the Officer of Herdsman of the Raywood Borough and Common at a nominal salary of one pound per annum and a commission of eighty per cent on fees received'. Handwritten on back of document: 'Bendigo Jam Factory 1902, January 11th. (indecipherable) lot Plums ten cases 2 ct 2 gr @ 40/-, 5.'frederick code, raywood pound, raywood common, axe creek, axedale, axedale pound

Land title Vol. 3730 Fol. 745810. On the fifth of April Edward Patrick Drake of Axedale hotelkeeper paid 6 pounds for one acre more of less being allotment four of section seven in the town of Axedale, parish of Axedale County. On the other side the names and dates of when the land changed hands up to July 1976.axedale, history, drake family

Axedale is well known for its Bluestone. Early on the quarries employed a large number of people. In the 1860’s Napthali Ingham selected land in Axedale and opened a bluestone quarry beside the river later known as Ingham Hill. The quarry produced dressed curbing and pitchers for use in Bendigo and Melbourne. This bluestone can be seen throughout Axedale in the churches, the bridge over the Campaspe River and guttering in the township. The quarry also supplied bluestone products further afield, for example road metal. Napthali Ingham, the owner of one of the first quarries in Axedale, arrived in Victoria from Lancashire, England, some time before 1860, and settled in Brunswick, Victoria. He may have been building his home in Ewen[sic] Street in 1860, at approximately 31 years of age, when he placed two advertisements in The Argus, October 10. One called for tenders for carting "upwards of 100 perches of rubbish to Sandridge." The other calls for tenders to supply "800 bushels of Geelong Roche Lime." His address, given for the purpose of the advertisements, is Ewen Street, Brunswick. There were a number of quarries and clay pits in Brunswick at this time and by July 9, 1861, Ingham was operating a quarry and contracting services to local councils and boroughs for road works, including Sydney Road. He also operated the True Briton Hotel in Ewen Street. Ingham continued his quarry works and business dealings in the Brunswick area for a few years and, around 1872, was contracting for the City of Bendigo. He eventually moved to Axedale, between Bendigo and Heathcote, where he took up land and opened a bluestone quarry on the east bank of the Campaspe River. As he had difficulty transporting bluestone to Bendigo, he wrote a letter to The Bendigo Advertiser, suggesting a tramway be laid between Sandhurst (Bendigo) and Axedale. Over the next ten years or so, he modified this suggestion to a rail line connecting Sandhurst, Axedale and Heathcote to the North East line at Seymour. This suggestion did not materialise in its entirety, but it eventually resulted in what became the Wandong, Heathcote and Sandhurst Rail Line, the first sections, Bendigo-Heathcote and Wandong-Kilmore, opening October 1, 1888. In the 1870s, Ingham built the Quarry Hotel which is now the crumbling ruins adjoining Ingham Road on the east side of the Campaspe River.. Its condition is worsening as time passes. Ingham intended to have a tramline constructed from his Axedale bluestone quarry to the new rail line. This also did not happen but he was successful in getting a wood siding provided at the location that is today's Hanson's Quarry. Evidence of the rail siding are still evident at the site in 2025. Ingham's quarry is now owned by Hansen Quarries Ingham died in 1909 and the rail line that grew out of his suggestion lasted until 1958 when it was closed from Bendigo to Heathcote. The Heathcote Junction section was closed in 1968. Another quarry was owned and operated by Brasier, Riley and Nelson. 'This well known firm of contractors have a most extensive plant and all the latest improved machinery required for the supply of kerbstone, pitchers, monumental work and dressed bluestone metal for road making. ('Bendigo & District, 1902') 1. One page typed poem, written by W.G. O'Neill, titled 'The Pitcher Dressers, (Quarrymen). The poem tells the story of three Rowan brothers who came to the Axedale Quarry: 'They came to work on Axedale stone, Big contracts came that way, As pitcher dressers they could earn, Their thirty bob a day.' 2. Three copies of newspaper articles relating to quarry work and employees attached to poem: information regarding Brasier, Riley and Nelson, contractors (Bendigo and District 1902); 'The Stone Quarry Grievance' (Bendigo Advertiser, 15 June, 1959, p2); 'A Restriction Upon Industry' (Bendigo Advertiser, 2 June, 1859). Article 'A Restriction Upon Industry" details the anomalies that exist between working the quartz reefs for gold and quarrying for building stone. The cost of obtaining a license to 'quarry stone is 50 pounds sterling which must be paid down in order to merely prospect the ground. Some people who took out a lease to work a reef were actually 'looking for building stone'. On bottom of poem, W.G. O'Neill, Bendigo. Pupil of Axedale School, 1908-1917.axedale, quarry, napthali ingham, pitchers, pitcher dressers, bluestone, campaspe river, quarry hotel, rowan brothers

Invoice issued to Mr Harris, Axedale on the 30th April 1892 by G. J. Sweeney and Company wood turners, timber, iron, lime and cement merchant for 8 pounds 13 shilling and 5 pence.business, retail, g.j. sweeney

small fawn coloured Receipt to David Harris from William Short, Sandhurst Academy of Arts School of painting in oil & water colours conducted by William Short M.V.A. Received Two pounds two shillings from David Harris for quarter ending 9.4.1886 (1886) - quarterly account (for tuition?).david harris, jonathan harris, axedale,