Historical information

The present store was built circa 1900 to replace another which had been destroyed by fire in 1898, which had replaced a predecessor on the opposite side of the road in 1865. The store was also used as a post office until early 2000s.

The general store is historically significant because it has a long association with Kangaroo Ground and has been an important centre of community life for more than 120 years - Council meetings used to be conducted in the front room of the store at a time when Kangaroo Ground rivalled Eltham as the major centre of the Shire. The general store is historically and aesthetically significant as one of a group of three well preserved public buildings in the Kangaroo Ground hamlet and as a major heritage component of Kangaroo Ground which was one of the earliest settled areas of the Shire and which has the character of an English village rather than an Australian settlement.

Covered under Heritage Overlay, Nillumbik Planning Scheme.

Published: Nillumbik Now and Then /​ Marguerite Marshall 2008; photographs Alan King with Marguerite Marshall.; p77

Today the general store is an uncommon form of trade but the one at Kangaroo Ground continues a long tradition of friendliness and service.
For more than 100 years it has been a centre of community life. In the settlement’s early days a previous general store, on the same site, was the meeting place for the Eltham District Road Board, precursor to the Eltham Shire Council.
For years Kangaroo Ground rivalled Eltham as the shire’s major centre. It developed very differently from the rest of the shire as its rich soil attracted prosperous Presbyterian Scots who had large agricultural properties.1
The present store was built to replace another one, which had burnt down in 1898, after replacing a predecessor on the other side of the road in 1865.
The store retains its outward character and its cellar, although inside it has changed considerably. It now includes a café and offers local produce, milk bar products, grocery items, gas and other fuel.
Until early this century the store was also used as a post office. Kangaroo Ground’s first postmaster was Andrew Ross, who first operated from the school opposite, then from his hotel next to the present tennis court site. The first postmaster at this store was Edward Weller, followed in 1868 by James Anderson.
At that time a mail coach ran three times a week between Eltham and Woods Point through Kangaroo Ground, Yarra Flats, Healesville, Fernshaw, Marysville and Matlock.
Some early postmasters were Rodger, McLaughlin, Greenway and Burns.2 Burns was the only postmaster operating from the store. The others operated from Andrew Ross’s hotel.
The mail service improved in 1892 when coaches ran from Melbourne to Queenstown (now known as St Andrews) and changed horses at Kangaroo Ground twice daily. The only telegraph office in the district at that time was at the Kangaroo Ground Post Office. Telegrams to outlying areas such as Queenstown and Kinglake had to be sent by hand. A local resident in the early 1900s often rode his pony to deliver telegrams and was paid one shilling a mile porterage.
The store has also contributed to the lighter side of Kangaroo Ground life. During the years that Con Wraight owned the store, between 1906 and 1946, a new piano was needed for the Kangaroo Ground Hall, so monthly dances were held to raise money. When the piano was bought, a grand ball was held in the Kangaroo Ground Hall to celebrate the occasion and supper followed at Mr Wraight’s barn, cleaned especially for the occasion. Every New Year’s Eve, a Scottish piper would set off from between the store and the schoolhouse, playing his pipes, and march to Cameron’s Pigeon Bank homestead on the Kangaroo Ground-Warrandyte Road.
Between 1914 and 1922, the store was a station for the Kangaroo Ground Bush Fire Brigade’s tanker. It consisted of a wooden barrel on a cart, fitted with a hand-pump, and stood on the side of the road outside the store.
Joy Ness, who belonged to an early Kangaroo Ground family, moved here in 1940 and recalled her impressions of the store at that time: ‘It was a very dark shop stained in a dark colour and on the walls just below the ceiling hung hurricane lamps, ropes, kitchen utensils and other goods for sale.
‘Goods were weighed on a brass scale with weights, on which mothers also weighed their babies, because the nearest Infant Welfare Centre was at Greensborough. The bacon was cut with a hand slicer and later a pot-bellied stove warmed the store. Farmers and other locals used to gossip around it as they collected their daily mail. In those days the butter and cheese were kept in the cellar as no ice was delivered for cooling.’

Significance

This collection of almost 130 photos about places and people within the Shire of Nillumbik, an urban and rural municipality in Melbourne's north, contributes to an understanding of the history of the Shire. Published in 2008 immediately prior to the Black Saturday bushfires of February 7, 2009, it documents sites that were impacted, and in some cases destroyed by the fires. It includes photographs taken especially for the publication, creating a unique time capsule representing the Shire in the early 21st century. It remains the most recent comprehenesive publication devoted to the Shire's history connecting local residents to the past.

Physical description

Born digital image file