Muntham, the pioneering Henty family former Coleraine station listed
Muntham Station, between Coleraine and Casterton, first settled by the Henty family, has been listed for sale by the Oldham family.
It is listed through Elders agent Shane McIntrye for November 14 expressions of interest.
The property in the Western District of Victoria, was dubbed by NSW Surveyor General Major Thomas Mitchell as 'Australia Felix' in 1836.
In 1836 Mitchell recommended the Hentys travel inland from Portland to see for themselves and soon after they settled at Muntham and neighbouring Merino Downs and Sandford.
The Henty family had left England several years earlier given poor prospects after the Napoleonic wars persuaded Thomas Henty to sell his Sussex farm and begin a new life with his wife, daughter, seven sons and a flock of Spanish merino sheep.
The family was granted more than 80,000 acres (32,000 hectares) on the Swan River in Western Australia and James Henty, the eldest son, sailed with stock and laborers in 1829. He failed to find good land and sailed to Launceston in 1831 where his mother, sister and four of his brothers including Edward.
Settlement in the Port Phillip District then part of New South Wales was forbidden, but Edward Henty first saw Portland Bay in April 1833 when sailing on his brother's boat, the Thistle, en route to collect whaling oil at Spencer Gulf.
The unauthorised third and last Henty migration landed on 19 November 1834.
The original section of the 1836 homestead remains one of the earliest structures in Victoria, extended in the 1850-60s, and in 1907 a kitchen wing was added. Servants rooms were also built at the rear of the house and at the turn of the twentieth century, a charming schoolhouse was erected to the rear of the main building.
It is now a beautiful, completely charming 6BR home in extensive English style gardens on Muntham Hill overlooking the Wennicot Creek.
The colonial artist Sir Thomas Clark painted the homestead in 1874.
While the original woolshed burnt down in 1920, the red brick barn, thought to have been built in the 1840s, sits at the rear of the homestead. It is believed to be the oldest brick building still standing on a farm in Victoria and is listed on the Victorian Heritage Database and by the National Trust of Victoria, who consider it culturally and architecturally significant to Victoria’s heritage.
It was modelled on English farmhouse traditions of the early nineteenth century and is more Georgian in character, typical of Tasmanian buildings of the era.
Successive owners, the Mackinnon, Ellis, Lobb, Dickinson, Hryckow and Oldham families – have all been worthy custodians.
It now harvests olive oil from its 350-tree grove, as well as produce an enviable Pinot Noir from its boutique vineyard. The farm is currently stocking 300 Angus breeders and calves, 60 retained heifers, 12 bulls, 300 ewes and lambs, and 160 hoggets.
Picture: Edward HENTY 1809-1878 standing on wool bales at "Muntham" Woolshed, Carapook with some of his workers in the foreground with the original HENTY plough. Source: Glenelg & Wannon Settlers & Settlement.