Mount Cottrell Median PriceThe House price is 2% lower than last year.
Surrounding suburbsMount Cottrell Median RentThe House rent is 11% higher than last year.
| | A653-701 GREIGS ROAD and 703-735 GREIGS ROAD, Mount Cottrell | | Distance: | 29.2 km to CBD; 2.5 km to Rockbank Station [Transport] |
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| Map | Street view | Nearby property price | | Planning History: | | | Registered as Victorian heritage | Last updated on - February 8, 2012
What is significant?
The former Australian Beam Wireless Receiving Station is located on a rural site at Mount Cottrell, south of Melton on the plains west of Melbourne, and consists of separate residential and operations complexes located about a kilometre apart and linked by the remnants of a roadway, adjacent to which are the concrete bases and guy wire anchors for the six original antenna masts. The station was built in 1926 as part of Australia's first direct international communications system. The receiving station operated in conjunction with a transmitting station at Fiskville, south of Ballan. The scheme was developed by Ernest Fisk, the Managing Director of AWA (Amalgamated Wireless (Australia) Pty Ltd), who had in 1918 demonstrated the feasibility of direct wireless communication between Australia and Britain, and with the support of Prime Minister William Hughes had overcome the objections to Fisk's scheme of Britain, which favoured a relay scheme. The two stations were built by AWA for 119,000 pounds. The official opening, attended by the Prime Minster Stanley Bruce and the Governor-General, took place in Melbourne on 8 April 1927. The system linked Britain, and in 1928 North America, directly with Australia by means of a telegraph system transmitted by short-wave beam wireless. From 1930 a radio-telephone service began, and in 1934 the system also began to send and receive pictures. Both stations included the workers' accommodation required to man the station continuously. The buildings are thought to have been designed under the supervision of the Commonwealth Architect, J S Murdoch. With the advent of co-axial cables in the 1950s and 1960s and satellite communication in the 1960s, demand for the beam wireless system decreased and the transmitting and receiving stations both closed in 1969.
The former Australian Beam Wireless Receiving Station accommodation complex on Greigs Road consists of four identical bungalows in a garden setting arranged symmetrically around a central drive, which leads from the entrance gates to an impressive main building in an Inter-war Spanish Mission style. This has an elaborate arched portico and central carriageway, and once contained bachelor accommodation and recreational facilities. The houses are constructed of rendered reinforced concrete and have hipped, corrugated iron-clad roofs and central entrance porches. The houses are separated by lawns, and Canary Island palms (Phoenix canariensis) line the driveway. The complex is enclosed on three sides by a tall hedge of mature Monterey cypresses (Cupressus macrocarpa), which also line the road beyond the recreation building. From the rear of the accommodation complex a track leads to the operations complex about a kilometre to the south-west. Along the south-east side of this road are the concrete bases and massive concrete guy |
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