Ned Kelly family farm land offering at Avenel
Land which was part of bushranger Ned Kelly's family farm has been listed for sale in Avenel, north-east of Melbourne.
Paul Bongiorno, of Mansfield Real Estate, is selling three blocks of land.
They were part of a 40 acre dairy farm rented by the Kellys from 1864 to 1867 at £14 a year to the landlady Elisabeth Mutton.
Each of the three 2.02-hectare blocks - located at Lot 2, Lot 3 and Lot 4 Hovell Street - is listed with a $225,000 asking price.
Town water and power is available on sites at the corner of Ewings Road.
Ned was born at his father's farm on the southern slopes of Mount Fraser at Beveridge before going to Avenel.
One of the strongest links with the Kelly clan is the Avenel pub, near Hughes Creek where the 11-year-old Ned jumped into a deep waterhole to save the life of young Richard Shelton.
Ned's father, John (Red) Kelly, is buried in Avenel cemetery after he was killed by an alcohol at the age of 46, leaving his wife, Ellen with seven children under 13. His death, in December 1866, meant his widow then moved to Greta to be closer to her family. She married a second time and lived at Greta until when aged over ninety years she died at Wangaratta Hospital in 1923.
"The deeds of the Kelly gang when they were outlawed in 1878, naturally caused great excitement at Avenel, especially among their old schoolmates and friends of the family.
"No one would hear a word against them, considered that the Kelly’s boys were victims of circumstances which drove them to desperate deeds," one amateur historian noted.
The former mayor of the Shire of Strathbogie, Robin Steers formerly owned 60 hectares with some of the land near Jessop's Bridge on the town boundary which was where the Kelly house used to stand.
William Henry Mutton and his wife, Elisabeth, were immigrants, who had arrived at Melbourne, in the ship, Lady Loch in 1846 from Cornwall. He was 24 when he arrived in Avenel with his bride Elizabeth Locke, of the Jersey Islands, who was of French descent.
They had initially settled in Seymour, soon after their arrival in the colony, but had suffered losses in disastrous floods, deciding to move further north along the Old Sydney Road to Hughes Creek, on the Avenel Run, where the government was offering Crown land for sale in 1849.
Mutton also opened a blacksmith’s shop, the first business in the township, and later opened a general store.