Fyansford Median PriceThe House price is 8% lower than last year.
Surrounding suburbsFyansford Median RentThe House rent is 4% higher than last year.
| | Map | Street view | Nearby property price | | Planning History: | | | Registered as Victorian heritage | Last updated on - June 28, 2005
What is significant?
The exploration of Hamilton Hume and William Hilton Hovell into inland New South Wales and Victoria on route to the Port Phillip District in 1824-25 and the favourable reports of the land they had seen was a significant event in the colonization of Victoria. While Hume and Hovell discovered major inland rivers and first sighted the mountains of the Great Dividing Range in Victoria, it was the adventurous Launceston sealers, whalers and pastoralists who informally took up land to further their commercial interests on the southern coastal areas of Victoria. In 1835 two exploring parties, representing the interests of settlers John Batman and John Fawkner from Tasmania, established themselves in Port Phillip district.
John Batman, on behalf of the Port Phillip Association, carried out exploration in Port Phillip district in 1835 and later in the same year, John Helder Wedge, another member of the Port Phillip Association made an extensive survey of the area around Corio Bay. Wedge's discovery of the Barwon and Moorabool Rivers confirmed Batman's opinion that the district was of great potential for grazing, and in 1843, Captain John Montagu, a partner in the Port Phillip Association, established a large pastoral run on the Barwon River near Fyansford. Montagu later acquired property and administered the run until his death in 1853.
By 1856 Charles Wyatt had acquired Montagu's run and in October 1857 Geelong architect Edward Prowse called tenders for a bluestone house and outbuildings at Charles Wyatt's Frogmore. In 1859 Wyatt, who had been trained in horticulture at the Frogmore Royal Gardens at Windsor,established a nursery at the edge of the Barwon River escarpment on his holding. By the 1850s, Fyansford had developed into a centre of a vine and fruit growing district and the Geelong area became the largest nineteenth century grape-growing region in Victoria and one of the largest in Australia. It was reported however, that by about 1870, the Frogmore vineyard had showed signs of sickness and in 1877 the presence of the deadly vine disease phylloxera on a neighbouring property had been definitely identified for the first time in Australia. Frogmore was suspected as being the initial site of the disease. By January 1878, thirteen vineyards in the Geelong district had been identified a carrying the disease and orders issued for their destruction. Charles Wyatt had apparently underestimated the seriousness of the situation at Fyansford and was shocked to discover on his return from an extended stay in Tasmania that his vineyard and vine nursery had been entirely destroyed, having read about it in the newspapers. He was particularly disturbed by the destruction, as he claimed that he had stocked one hundred and fifty varieties in his vineyard, including many that were resistant to phylloxera and other diseases. |
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