Bacchus Marsh, Melbourne VIC
The trees of the Avenue of Honour provide an impressive entrance from the east to Bacchus Marsh,& 49km W of Melbourne. This long-established town is in a fertile valley,& once marshland,& between the Werribee and Lerderderg Rivers. In town: June: Rotary Art Show. Nov: Cup Day in the Park. Dec: Woodchop.
Picnicking,& bushwalking,& swimming,& walking tracks,& wineries.
History
Aboriginal
It is believed that the tribe occupying the area at the time of white settlement were the Kurung. Bacchus Marsh was a meeting ground for anywhere between 150 and 400 Aborigines even after white settlement, and corroborees were held quite regularly. While there do not appear to be any records of open hostilities between whites and indigenous people, by 1863 there were a total of only 33 Aborigines left in the Bacchus Marsh district, and apart from a handful of recollections of the original inhabitants preserved by pioneer settlers, sadly little remains apart from present-day locality names, mainly of watercourses: Coimadai, Djerriwarrh, Korkuperrimul, Lerderderg, Merrimu, Myrniong, Werribee.
European settlement
Stone bridge over Djerriwarrh Creek
One of the first white men to reach the Bacchus Marsh valley was pastoralist Kenneth Scobie Clarke (c. 1806–79), a native of Sutherland in Scotland. Clarke was a manager for the Great Lake Company of Van Diemen’s Land and arrived in the Port Phillip District from George Town on 25 March 1836. Captain Bacchus credited Clarke as being the first man to shear sheep in Victoria, although the Hentys had arrived in Portland with their sheep some two years earlier.
On 29 November 1836, Clarke headed west from Port Phillip with a large flock of sheep, arriving in the Bacchus Marsh district a few days later. He built a hut on the west bank of the Lerderderg River near Darley, and lived there until early 1838. According to pastoralist George Russell, Clarke had acted on information obtained from Mr Aitken, an Edinburgh man, who was most put out when he discovered that Clarke had beaten him to the Pentland Hills run.
In 1838, Englishman Captain William Henry Bacchus (1782–1849) and his son William Henry Bacchus junior (1820–87) also brought sheep from Tasmania and came to the district which now bears their name. On their arrival, Clarke made an arrangement with them and ceded his run, moving to the nearby hills known as the Pentlands. The then very swampy valley was not really suitable for sheep, as they were prone to footrot. Clarke stayed in the district until 1840 or 1841, and later went to New Zealand, where he died in 1879.
As all land within 3 miles (5 km) of a squatter’s hut was considered to belong to him, Bacchus and his son immediately set about consolidating their land holdings. By 1839–40, they had a homestead and four outstations on the Lardedark run, which in 1845 covered about 22 square miles (57 km2) and carried nearly 3,000 sheep. Between 1845–47 Captain Bacchus built the Manor House, a two-storey Georgian brick building that still stands in the township today. Captain Bacchus died in 1849 and was buried in what later became the grounds of Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Gisborne Road. By 1851, Henry Bacchus junior had sold his holdings in Bacchus Marsh and moved to Peerewur (or Perewerrh) run near Ballarat.
Attractions
Avenue of Honour
A feature of the town is the Avenue of Honour — several kilometres of trees planted along the old main road from Melbourne, to honour those who served in the Great War. One of its principal recreation areas is Maddingley Park, which is a favourite picnic destination for both locals and visitors.
The other nearby feature is the small stone bridge that crosses Djerriwarrh Creek. This historic bridge was built by Irish immigrants in the 1850s to assist travel to the Ballarat goldfields. One of its builders, Richard Griffith, decided to remain in the area and his family still works the farm that surrounds the bridge reserve.
Walks along the Lerderderg River provide access to the steep, rugged and overgrown Lerderderg Gorge and the extensive Wombat State Park that surrounds it, criss-crossed by four-wheel drive tracks, extensive bushwalking amongst historic mining relics and natural bush.
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