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Colloquially known as the Stick Shed, the Marmalake Grain Store Wheat Storage Shed is the largest building in Murtoa, out on the Wimmera plains between Horsham and St Arnaud.
The Stick Shed is a type of grain storage facility built in Victoria during the early 1940s. The Marmalake / Murtoa Grain Store No.1 was built in 1941-42 during a wheat glut, to store wheat that could not be exported during World War II. It is the earliest & last remaining example of this particular grand Australian rural vernacular tradition.
The Stick Shed is 265 metres long, 60.5 metres wide and 19-20 metres high, supported by 560 unmilled mountain ash poles. Its vast gabled interior space and long rows of poles have been likened to the nave of a cathedral.
The Stick Shed demonstrates Australian ingenuity during a time of hardship, it was added to the Victorian Heritage Register in 1990.
Find more stories and photographs about the Stick Shed on the Way Back Then blog.
Courtesy of Leigh Hammerton and Wimmera Regional Library Corporation
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Courtesy of Leigh Hammerton and Wimmera Regional Library Corporation
The Murtoa Stick Shed spans the length of five Olympic swimming pools. With its vast, gabled interior and long rows of poles the interior space has been likened to the nave of a cathedral.
The 'Stick Shed' was commissioned by the Grain Elevators Board, and Green Bros contractors undertook construction of what was officially known as Marmalake/Murtoa Grain Store No.1 over a period of only four or five months, commencing in September 1941.
A shortage of steel meant that the shed was built largely from timber readily available at the time, most notably some 560 (56 rows of 10) bush-cut mountain ash poles erected straight into the ground.
Photograph - 'Digging footings for the elevator-housing tower at Murtoa Stick Shed', 1941, Public Record Office of Victoria
Courtesy of Public Record Office Victoria
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An elevator at one end of the Stick Shed took wheat up to the ridge level where it was distributed by conveyor along the length of the shed, creating a huge single mound of grain.
Here, men dig the footings for the elevator-housing tower.
Photograph - 'Erecting poles for Murtoa Stick Shed', 1941, Public Record Office of Victoria
Courtesy of Public Record Office Victoria
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Photograph - 'Moving and erecting poles for Murtoa Stick Shed', Public Record Office of Victoria
Courtesy of Public Record Office Victoria
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A tractor hauls a pole during the erection of the Murtoa Stick Shed.
Photograph - 'Erecting poles directly in the ground, Murtoa Stick Shed', Public Record Office of Victoria
Courtesy of Public Record Office Victoria
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A shortage of steel meant that the Murtoa Stick Shed was built largely from timber readily available at the time. Some 560 (56 rows of 10) bush-cut mountain ash hardwood poles were erected straight into the ground.
Concrete panels were then poured around the poles.
Photograph - 'Murtoa Stick Shed under construction', 1941, Public Record Office of Victoria
Courtesy of Public Record Office Victoria
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Photograph - 'Murtoa Stick Shed, full of grain', 1984, State Library Victoria
Courtesy of State Library Victoria
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Bulk deliveries of grain were distributed through the Stick Shed via a system of mechanical elevators and conveyors, including a central conveyor running high along the centre of the shed.
Elevators transported wheat from delivery hoppers up to ridge level where it was distributed by conveyor along the length of the shed, creating a huge single mound of grain.
Braced internal timber bulkheads on either side of the shed took the lateral thrust of the wheat, and a conveyor at ground level outside the south bulkhead took wheat back to the elevator for transport elsewhere. The roof angle was sloped to reflect the same angle a pile of wheat forms naturally.
The shed is 280m long, 60m wide and 19m high at the ridge, and had capacity to store 95,000 tonnes (or 3.4 million bushels) of grain.
Courtesy of Leigh Hammerton and Wimmera Regional Library Corporation
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Courtesy of Leigh Hammerton and Wimmera Regional Library Corporation
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Courtesy of Leigh Hammerton and Wimmera Regional Library Corporation
The 560 unmilled tree trunks supporting the roofing timbers and iron of the Stick Shed might be viewed as a peculiar, symmetrically arranged 'interior forest'.
With its vast, gabled interior and long rows of poles the interior space has been likened to the nave of a cathedral.
Courtesy of Leigh Hammerton and Wimmera Regional Library Corporation
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Courtesy of Leigh Hammerton and Wimmera Regional Library Corporation
A conveyor and walkway at the ridge level distributed the wheat along the length of the shed creating a huge single mound of grain.
Photograph - Melissa Powell, 'Repair and stabilisation work', 2009, Heritage Council Victoria
Courtesy of Melissa Powell and Heritage Council Victoria
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Courtesy of Melissa Powell and Heritage Council Victoria
When the Murtoa Stick Shed ceased to be used for grain storage after 1989, plans were made for its demolition. However an Interim Preservation Order was served by Historic Buildings Council (HBC) in December 1989 and by December 1990 the shed had been added to the Historic Buildings Register.
Debate continued over subsequent years, with frequent calls for the demolition of the building from some sources and persistent arguments for its preservation from others.
Ultimately, the Heritage Council of Victoria undertook a large-scale program of work to stabilise and repair the Stick Shed, including the repair of damaged poles and installation of galvanised wire “netting” to cover the entire roof area.
Work is being undertaken to provide permanent public access to the Shed, separated from the activity of the surrounding grain storage complex. Application has also been made to have the Stick Shed added to the Commonwealth Heritage Register.
The Friends of Murtoa Stick Shed group, amongst other organisations, is playing a vital local role in supporting the preservation and reinvention of the Stick Shed as a publically accessible building.
Film - Stick Shed Memories Video, Malcolm McKinnon, 2012
Courtesy of Malcolm McKinnon and Wimmera Regional Library Corporation
Film - Stick Shed Memories Video, Malcolm McKinnon, 2012
[Conveyor belt]
[Vision of shed]
[Stuart Sudholz]
I've known the shed all of my life, and when it was first built, it was a fantastic place. It was a credit to the builders of those days because we were still gripped with the Depression here, and there was plenty of people around working and wanting work, and it didn't take them long to put the shed up. It was all manual labour.
[Black-and-white photo of poles and flat-top truck]
[Stuart Sudholz]
I can remember them bringing the poles up from the Dandenongs on the flat-top trucks. All the employees had hand saws, and these sticks, or the poles, went up and the shed was built.
[Construction of shed]
[Stuart Sudholz]
I left school in the 1944 drought, and then I drove a team of horses.
[Team of four horses]
[Stuart Sudholz]
We did all the farm work with the horses and the old Bulldog tractor.
[Six horses pulling loaded wagon]
[Stuart Sudholz]
And you'd have your six horses in the wagon and... It was a pretty slow process. One load in the morning and one load in the afternoon. And you pulled into the hopper here.
You'd have a quiet horse on the right-hand side, and they'd put a gangplank out the back, and you'd wheel the bags of wheat off the wagon, and tip them in the hopper and then they went up the top here.
[Tipping wheat]
[Men load bags of wheat onto truck]
[Jack Delahunty]
Me brother was carting the wheat in a '29 Chev truck, 32 bags of wheat on it. So, they had to weigh down at the flour mill. There was no weighbridge here then when it first started, and then they'd come up to here and tip the bags, and they climbed up to have a look at the... where the wheat had fallen in. They walked out and they said, 'It just looked like a horse had come in there, and did its job and walked out.' There was only a little patch of wheat there.
[Grains of wheat fall onto man's palm]
[Stuart Sudholz]
You couldn't get rid of the weevil. You could smell the gas that they'd put on there. Whichever way the wind was blowing, it was a terrible smell. I wouldn't have liked to be working in it.
[Black-and-white photo inside shed]
[Douglas Jones]
I started here in 1980. First year I got here, the shed was full, of course. There was about 90... 90,000 tonne in here. And to work in here was hot, humid and dusty.
[Interior of shed]
I think there was about 20 of us working on permanent them days. We'd all get a broom each and say, 'Righto, go sweep the shed.' And you'd go, 'OK, where's me mate?' You couldn't see him. There's 20 blokes in here sweeping, 'cause all the dust and stuff. You'd lose him. But anyway, it was just part and parcel of the day's work.
[Stream of wheat tipping downwards]
[Jason Keel]
My first year here was the harvest of '87-'88, and my first couple of years, the Stick Shed was still operational. So, it was a bit of an eye-opener, and labour-intensive as a kid coming from the school, you know, working in this environment with dust and trucks. Just to hear the humming noise of the conveyors, you know, whether it be feeding the shed or out-loading the shed. The cross conveyor that fed across every seven bays, you had a bit of an art to tracking.
[Inside shed]
[Jason Keel]
So the belt would skewiff one way, so you'd get a hammer and just tap the idlers, as they're called, the rollers. Tap them in a different direction, the belt would skewiff over and you'd hear the old du-du-du-du, all the humming noises, 'cause the grain would be fairly quiet, and the dray loads would make a clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk noise. So you'd hear this clunk-clunk-clunk, du-du-du-du, yeah, just different sort of sounds. It's still quite enjoyable coming in here. Like, people walk in the door and go, 'Whoa,' you know.
And even I still walk in and say, 'Oh,' you know, it still jumps at you as an open space with timber poles.
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Courtesy of Malcolm McKinnon and Wimmera Regional Library Corporation
In this video, veteran local farmers recollect the construction of the Murtoa Stick Shed and the experience of delivering grain during the early years of its operation.
