Greenough Flats history unfolding
The original inhabitants of the Greenough Front Flats were a tribe of the Noongar Aborigines known as Yabbaroo. They camped near the few permanent waterholes and mainly subsisted on the adjecca and anguwarra, two potato-like plants which grew in abundance in the area. In 1839 Lieutenant George Grey passed through the areas on his way back to Perth after the expedition he was leading was shipwrecked at Gantheaume Bay, near the present day Kalbarri. Grey named the Greenough River after his sponsor, Sir George Bellas Greenough, president of the Royal Geographical Society. And is reputed to have said “Here is the district that is destined to be the granary of Western Australia”.
However, it was a shortage of grazing land that led the Gregory brothers and other pastoralists to carry out private expeditions in the late 1840s. Their favourable reports resulted in cattle and sheep being driven overland from Perth in 1850 and the establishment of pastoral properties at Glengarry, Ellendale and on the Flats by men like Thomas Brown, Major Logue and Edward Hamersley of the Cattle Company.
Some of those convicts went on to become farmers and land owners. John Patience (Convict No.2) took up land just across the road from what is now the Pioneer Museum and built in 1857 the Rock of Ages Cottage.
The early years of settlement were difficult. The first homes were temporary shelters and it was well into the 1870s before stone was quarried from the ridge between the Front an Back Flats to provide material for more permanent structures. Timber for building was short supply, so sun dried bricks were used for the first buildings. These homes, and many of the later stone buildings, were constructed in the lee of the hills to avoid the ravages of the strong regional winds. Roofs were thatched with rush and calico was used for ceilings, doors and windows. The stone houses built in the 1870s and 1890s contained timber floors and glass windows, but these were mainly built by people who had been successful in the area. One of those early cottages belonging to the Eakins family was to be left to fall into a ruinous state. Fortunately in the early 1980s the cottage was restored and now located in its gardens is the fabulous Bentwood Olive Grove Cafe. This, one of the best places to dine on the Greenough Flats is open from Easter to Christmas. Check out their website. The agricultural methods of the early days of settlement were also very primitive. Although the soil of the area was so rich that it only required one ploughing before planting, some early settlers did not even have a single furrow plough-instead they dug their fields with a spade. Seed was thrown from bag over the shoulder and then scratched into the ground with a crude harrow. The method of drilling see was not generally accepted in the area until about 1900. Despite these methods good crops were gained from the alluvial Flats and these were reaped with a scythe. Threshing was done on hard –surfaced area of crushed termite nests. Greenough was a land of great promise in the 1860s and the population increased rapidly until there were over a 1000 people living on the Flats. Schools, churches, stores, private and Government buildings were constructed, and communities formed. However the initial prosperity was not to last. The wheat crops of those days were not resistant to the fungus ’red rust’, which together with fires, droughts and declining soil fertility caused many problems. The most devastating setback in Greenough occurred in February 1888 when the usually placid Greenough River became a raging, destructive torrent. Heavy cyclonic rain had fallen into the river’s headwaters hundreds of kilometers away, causing a devastating flood. Four people were drowned, animals were lost, and houses, sheds, fencing, haystacks and water points were either badly damaged or totally destroyed.
But the Hampton Arms Hotel is still fully licensed today! By the turn of the century the land had been depleted by the agricultural methods of the time. The Greenough Front Flats were overstocked and over cropped without being fertilised or allowed to lie fallow. This century, with the help of modern farming techniques, fertilisers and planting rust-resistant strains of wheat, the area has regained its fertility and once again prospers as a rich agricultural district. Today there are many places of interest for the visitor on the Greenough Flats. One of the places we recommend is the Greenough Wildlife & Bird Park. Greenough Wildlife & Bird Park
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Rather than battle on, many left the area to try their luck in the Goldfield, others to take up land in the new agricultural regions. Most of the stone buildings were deserted for many years. During the Great Depression of the 1930s some of the buildings were demolished and the stone was crushed and used to reconstruct roads in the district.
