FUN Weekend At Nirranda March 19-21 2004
STEP BACK IN TIME MOONSHINE'S THE CRIME
WHISKEYSTILLS Inc. - A COMMUNITY GROUP
The FIRST OFFICIAL FUNDRAISING Event was held in 2004. Since then the group has continued to present historical facts to the people, lately in the unveiling of numerous plaques commemorating specific icons of the past era.
PhotosCurdies River
Boggy Creek Pub, the hub of activity.
Thomas Rundle and his wife Jane(nee Stark)from Tregony near Truro in Cornwall, England, disembarked in Geelong Australia on 24th December 1852 from the ship "Victory" along with child Mary Ann and Thomas's sister, Catherine and her husband John Moon and family. Thomas, being a registered stonemason disembarked in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, and made his way to the Barrabool hills, possibly to work in the Ceres area as there was a natural source of bluestone being quarried at Fyansford. The Fyansford quarry closed down sometime in the late 1990s. The entrance gate can be seen on the right as you travel west out of Geelong, past the Fyansford pub cross the bridge and immediately turn down the road that runs along beside the Moorabool River. The mill is located at the end of the road and is now a private property on the junction of the two rivers - the Moorabool and Barabool. There too you will find the mill's bluestone water race and the huge mill wheel which overlooks Buckley's Falls; William Buckley being the escaped convict who spent most of his life living with the aborigines and whom the Barabool water fall in the River is named after. You can travel along the road on the top of the hill, descend down into the river and cross the pebbled area into Buckley's Falls if the water level is low. Meanwhile back at Boggy Creek.Mary Price's grandfather, John Stark Rundle was the builder and first licencee of The Sportsman's Arms Hotel now called the Boggy Pub at Boggy Creek (also known as Curdievale) until 1911 when he sold it to Peter Yule. The bar was originally carried on in the rooms constructed of timber and built in 1893/94 in front of the three stone rooms which were originally used as bedrooms. A GHOST?These are the rooms in which present day staff and patrons have seen ghosts, usually a man in a coat and a woman and baby. John Rundle had jouneyed to Dalton in NSW to build the Dalton pub and possibly other establishments in the Goulbourn area and may have met Mary while in the area. They married in Dalton with their first child John Benjamin being born there. John Benjamin lived to be 100 years of age and died in Ballarat after enjoying his 100th birthday party in 1981. Some time after his birth the family arrived at Boggy Creek purchased the land and proceeded to construct the pub while living in their boarding house opposite. Mary ran the boarding house while John Stark ran the pub although Mary was the lady who minded the purse seeing John enjoyed embibing in the drink. The Boggy Creek pub was named "The Sportsman's Arms Hotel" after its namesake - their Rundle relatives' hotel in the area of Meheniot, Cornwall, near Truro, England. A hotel and inn named The Sportsmans Arms are still to be found in Cornwall, England today. John and his wife Mary continued to run the boarding house and lolly shop opposite the hotel. | PUB BURNS DOWNThe hotel at Boggy Creek burnt down in about 1921, and was rebuilt in 1922. Three of the original stone rooms were left standing after the fire and the bar was moved to those rooms and continued in those rooms. Former licencee, John Stark Rundle, being a stone mason from Cornwall, built the new section for Peter Yule. John also built many of the existing bluestone and sandstone buildings in the area including the Irvine memorial at Peterborough cliff top, buildings around Mortlake including Churches, the homestead of Merang apparently built by Thomas and an addition later built by son John, the Dalton pub in NSW, also the original prison in Maud St Geelong and Pentridge in Melbourne and many stone bridges. Brother in law John Tonkin was also a stone mason and probably worked along side the Rundles. CORNISH HOUSE DESIGNThe boarding house at Boggy Creek was built in the style of the old Cornish stone cottages with their thick walls and low ceilings. It had a slab fence out the front on which the horses were tied. The back section consisting of a number of bedrooms, had white-washed hesian dividing walls. It was the custom to whitewash the walls on a regular basis. A piano had been imported from Germany for the family, but after John Stark Rundle realised it was manufactured in Germany, he never went into the room with the piano due to his aversion to the Germans, our enemies during the First World War.(1914-1918) REFERENCE: Article photo and oral history collected by Wendy Reed. Updated 14092006For further Reseach |