Koroit, Victoria
Encyclopedia
Koroit is a small rural town in western Victoria
, Australia
a few kilometres north of the Princes Highway
, 18 kilometres (11.2 mi) north-west of Warrnambool
and 278 kilometres (172.7 mi) west of Melbourne
. It is in the Shire of Moyne local government area located amidst rolling green pastures on the North rim of Tower Hill
. At the 2006 census
, Koroit had a population of 1,497. The town borrows its name from the Koroitch Gundidj people who occupied the area prior to European settlement. The town bears a name similar to the Kororoit Creek
which flows west of Melbourne
.
The first European knowledge of the area is the confirmed sighting of Tower Hill by French explorers sailing with Captain Nicolas Baudin
aboard Le Géographe in 1802. The first European settler came to the Koroit area in 1837. A large number of Irish immigrants made Koroit their home in the 1840s and 1850s. The township of Koroit was surveyed and the first town allotments were sold in 1857. The Post Office opened on 23 April 1858.
One of the strongest and most obvious links between Koroit and Ireland are the potato crops grown in the rich volcanic soil surrounding the town. Eight sites in Koroit are listed in the Register of the National Estate.
What became the Port Fairy railway was extended to the town in 1890, along with a branch to Hamilton, both being closed in 1977.
Koroit was originally part of the Shire of Belfast
(Belfast being the prior name of today’s Port Fairy). In the latter part of the 19th century, the township of Koroit separated from the Shire of Belfast and formed the Borough of Koroit
. In November 1870, after the proclamation of the Borough of Koroit on 7 October 1870, nine new councillors were elected from fourteen candidates. On 10 December 1870, the new Borough of Koroit elected its first mayor. In 1985, the Borough of Koroit merged with the Shire of Warrnambool
and was incorporated into the Shire of Moyne in 1994.
The author Henry Handel Richardson
lived in the Koroit Post Office as a child after her family moved to Koroit in 1878. Remembering Koroit from her youth, the third volume in her The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
trilogy is set in the town. When the author was six, her father Walter died in Koroit on 1 August 1879 and was buried at the Koroit cemetery.
ic magma
came into contact with the subterranean water table. The violent explosion that followed created the funnel-shaped crater
(later filled by a lake) and the islands seen today. It is one in a line of more than 30 volcanoes that stretch from Colac to the East to Mount Gambier
in South Australia. Artefacts found in the volcanic ash layers show that Aborigines were living in the area at the time of the eruption. This area including Tower Hill is part of the UNESCO-endorsed Kanawinka Geopark
.
Tower Hill has always been public land, initially reserved as an Acclimatization Zone in 1866 it was declared a State Forest in 1872. An Act of Parliament on 5 December 1892 declared Tower Hill to be a National Park
, Victoria's first and one of the earliest in the World. With no additional funding, management of the Tower Hill National Park was vested with the Borough of Koroit. To ease the burden on ratepayers, the Borough was forced to collect royalties from quarrying of volcanic road-making material and grazing leases. At the end of the 19th century, Tower Hill was a shadow of its former glory with bracken being the dominant vegetation and rabbits the dominant wildlife species. In 1961, the Borough transferred Tower Hill to the State and in association with the Fisheries and Wildlife Department it became a State Game Reserve.
The vegetation of Tower Hill was originally a diverse collection of Manna Gum
, Blackwood
, Black Wattle
, Swamp Gum
and Drooping Sheoak. However, early settlers soon removed much of the vegetation. Since 1961, Tower Hill has been revegetated and is now home to koala
s, kangaroo
s, emu
s and many bird species. A number of walks, picnic areas and public facilities are located within the Reserve.
The local cemetery is the Tower Hill Cemetery located on the South Eastern slopes of Tower Hill. The first recorded burials at the Tower Hill cemetery began in 1859. Charles Pye
, an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, died in Kirkstall on 12 July 1876 and is buried at Tower Hill.
Within the cemetery, there is a marble column over the grave of William McLean. The epitaph, believed to have been written by Henry Lawson, reads: “Erected by his fellow unionists and admirers in memory of their comrade, William John McLean who was shot by a non-unionist at Grassmere, New South Wales, during the bush struggle in 1894 and who died 22 March, aged 26 years. A good son and faithful mate and a devoted unionist, Union is strength”. The related events are known as the 1894 shearers' strike.
Nobel Prize-winning Australian biologist Sir Macfarlane Burnet's mother, née Hadassah Pollock Mackay, was born in Koroit in 1872. Her Glasgow schoolteacher father emigrated to Australia in the late 1850s and settled in Koroit. After Burnet's death in August 1985, he was buried at the local cemetery.
Within the town, the Koroit Botanic Gardens form part of a large, central recreational area, and were designed by notable landscape architect
, William Guilfoyle
. The gardens were established in 1862 with an area of approximately three hectares in High Street. Koroit's War Memorial is located on the edge of the Botanic Gardens. In addition to The Olde Courthouse Inn, Koroit hosts two hotels in the main street, Commercial Road, the Commercial Hotel and Mickey Bourke's Koroit Hotel.
The Koroit and Tower Hill Butter and Cheese Factory Company Ltd was established in Koroit in the 1890s. An expanded facility continues today on the same site as part of the Murray Goulburn Co-operative Co. Limited. The facility is Australia's largest milk
processing plant in terms of milk volume. From a three-hectare site on Commercial Road, the company runs a fleet of tankers collecting milk from suppliers throughout Western Victoria and South Australia. The site produces cream, buttermilk, anhydrous milk fat (AMF) and a wide variety of milk powders, for both local and international markets.
The former Tower Hill Lake National School in High Street near the Koroit Oval is the least altered of three surviving substantially intact examples of schools of the National School era existing in Victoria. Its design is unusual in that it is built to an H-shaped plan with the classrooms flanking the teacher's residence. It is significant to the Koroit community as its oldest building, having been constructed in the same year that the township was surveyed (1857), and was the venue for the first election and the early meetings of the Koroit Borough Council following a break away from the Belfast Shire in 1870.
takes place in August of each year. The Koroit Agricultural Show takes place annually in November. The Koroit Irish Festival is a celebration of Irish heritage via music. Live music is featured at the hotels whilst a hive of market activity and music emanates from over 100 stalls and six stages set up along the main street. The festival includes street performers, arts and crafts and a variety of children's activities and entertainment. The festival is held annually on the weekend prior to the first Thursday in May.
Koroit is at the centre of a recreational trail under construction along a decommissioned railway line that ran between Warrnambool, Koroit and Port Fairy. The vision is for a 30 km recreational trail starting at Lake Pertobe in Warrnambool, passing through fertile farmland to Koroit (with a connection to Tower Hill) and finishing at the fishing village of Port Fairy.
The town has an Australian rules football
team, the Koroit Saints
, playing in the Hampden Football League.
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
a few kilometres north of the Princes Highway
Princes Highway
The Princes Highway extends from Sydney to Port Augusta via the coast through the states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, a distance of 1941 km or 1898 km via the former alignments of the highway ....
, 18 kilometres (11.2 mi) north-west of Warrnambool
Warrnambool, Victoria
-Cityscape:The original City of Warrnambool was a 4x8 grid, with boundaries of Lava Street , Japan Street , Merri Street and Henna Street . In the nineteenth century, it was intended that Fairy Street – with its proximity to the Warrnambool Railway Station – would be the main street of...
and 278 kilometres (172.7 mi) west of Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
. It is in the Shire of Moyne local government area located amidst rolling green pastures on the North rim of Tower Hill
Tower Hill (volcano)
Tower Hill is an inactive volcano on the southwest coast of Victoria, Australia. Within the crater the explosion also formed a series of small cones and spheres surrounded by a crater lake.Tower Hill volcano is roughly 4 km wide and 80 m high...
. At the 2006 census
Census in Australia
The Australian census is administered once every five years by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The most recent census was conducted on 9 August 2011; the next will be conducted in 2016. Prior to the introduction of regular censuses in 1961, they had also been run in 1901, 1911, 1921, 1933,...
, Koroit had a population of 1,497. The town borrows its name from the Koroitch Gundidj people who occupied the area prior to European settlement. The town bears a name similar to the Kororoit Creek
Kororoit Creek
Kororoit Creek is a major waterway of over 80 km in length in the north-west and western parts of Melbourne. Its headwaters are north of Sunbury at 400m above sea level in ordovician geology...
which flows west of Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
.
History
Prior to European settlement the Koroit area was a rich source of foods for the Koroitch Gundidj people, whose descendants retain special links with the area.The first European knowledge of the area is the confirmed sighting of Tower Hill by French explorers sailing with Captain Nicolas Baudin
Nicolas Baudin
Nicolas-Thomas Baudin was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer.Baudin was born a commoner in Saint-Martin-de-Ré on the Île de Ré. At the age of fifteen he joined the merchant navy, and at twenty joined the French East India Company...
aboard Le Géographe in 1802. The first European settler came to the Koroit area in 1837. A large number of Irish immigrants made Koroit their home in the 1840s and 1850s. The township of Koroit was surveyed and the first town allotments were sold in 1857. The Post Office opened on 23 April 1858.
One of the strongest and most obvious links between Koroit and Ireland are the potato crops grown in the rich volcanic soil surrounding the town. Eight sites in Koroit are listed in the Register of the National Estate.
What became the Port Fairy railway was extended to the town in 1890, along with a branch to Hamilton, both being closed in 1977.
Koroit was originally part of the Shire of Belfast
Shire of Belfast
The Shire of Belfast was a Local Government Area located about west-southwest of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The shire covered an area of , and existed from 1853 until 1994.-History:...
(Belfast being the prior name of today’s Port Fairy). In the latter part of the 19th century, the township of Koroit separated from the Shire of Belfast and formed the Borough of Koroit
Borough of Koroit
The Borough of Koroit was a Local Government Area located about northwest of Warrnambool in western Victoria, Australia. The borough covered an area of immediately to the north of the Tower Hill State Game Reserve, and existed from 1870 until 1985....
. In November 1870, after the proclamation of the Borough of Koroit on 7 October 1870, nine new councillors were elected from fourteen candidates. On 10 December 1870, the new Borough of Koroit elected its first mayor. In 1985, the Borough of Koroit merged with the Shire of Warrnambool
Shire of Warrnambool
The Shire of Warrnambool was a Local Government Area located about west-southwest of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The shire covered an area of , and existed from 1854 until 1994.-History:...
and was incorporated into the Shire of Moyne in 1994.
The author Henry Handel Richardson
Henry Handel Richardson
Henry Handel Richardson, the pseudonym used by Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, was an Australian author. She took the name "Henry Handel" because at that time, many people did not take women's writing seriously, so she used a male name...
lived in the Koroit Post Office as a child after her family moved to Koroit in 1878. Remembering Koroit from her youth, the third volume in her The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is a three-part novel by Australian writer Henry Handel Richardson. It consists of Australia Felix , The Way Home , and Ultima Thule . It was collected in 1930 under the title by which it is now best known...
trilogy is set in the town. When the author was six, her father Walter died in Koroit on 1 August 1879 and was buried at the Koroit cemetery.
Tower Hill
Tower Hill has always been a part of Koroit and in the town's earliest days the lake within the Tower Hill crater was the source of the town's drinking water. Tower Hill is an extinct volcano formed at least 30,000 years ago when a hot rising basaltBasalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
ic magma
Magma
Magma is a mixture of molten rock, volatiles and solids that is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and is expected to exist on other terrestrial planets. Besides molten rock, magma may also contain suspended crystals and dissolved gas and sometimes also gas bubbles. Magma often collects in...
came into contact with the subterranean water table. The violent explosion that followed created the funnel-shaped crater
Volcanic crater
A volcanic crater is a circular depression in the ground caused by volcanic activity. It is typically a basin, circular in form within which occurs a vent from which magma erupts as gases, lava, and ejecta. A crater can be of large dimensions, and sometimes of great depth...
(later filled by a lake) and the islands seen today. It is one in a line of more than 30 volcanoes that stretch from Colac to the East to Mount Gambier
Mount Gambier, South Australia
Mount Gambier is the largest regional city in South Australia located approximately 450 kilometres south of the capital Adelaide and just 17 kilometres from the Victorian border....
in South Australia. Artefacts found in the volcanic ash layers show that Aborigines were living in the area at the time of the eruption. This area including Tower Hill is part of the UNESCO-endorsed Kanawinka Geopark
Kanawinka Geopark
The Kanawinka Geopark, named for Kanawinka, “Land of Tomorrow”, is situated along a structurally controlling geological fault of the same name that extends from the Narracoorte Caves in South Australia into Western Victoria, before disappearing offshore at Portland...
.
Tower Hill has always been public land, initially reserved as an Acclimatization Zone in 1866 it was declared a State Forest in 1872. An Act of Parliament on 5 December 1892 declared Tower Hill to be a National Park
National park
A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...
, Victoria's first and one of the earliest in the World. With no additional funding, management of the Tower Hill National Park was vested with the Borough of Koroit. To ease the burden on ratepayers, the Borough was forced to collect royalties from quarrying of volcanic road-making material and grazing leases. At the end of the 19th century, Tower Hill was a shadow of its former glory with bracken being the dominant vegetation and rabbits the dominant wildlife species. In 1961, the Borough transferred Tower Hill to the State and in association with the Fisheries and Wildlife Department it became a State Game Reserve.
The vegetation of Tower Hill was originally a diverse collection of Manna Gum
Manna Gum
Eucalyptus viminalis, Manna Gum, also known as White Gum, Ribbon Gum or Viminalis is an Australian eucalypt.It is a straight erect tree, often around 40 metres tall, with rough bark on the trunk and base of larger branches, its upper bark peels away in long "ribbons" which can collect on the...
, Blackwood
Australian Blackwood
Acacia melanoxylon, commonly known as the Australian Blackwood, is an Acacia species native in eastern Australia. The species is also known as Sally Wattle, Lightwood, Hickory, Mudgerabah, Tasmanian Blackwood or Black Wattle . This tree species grows fast and tall, up to 45 m height...
, Black Wattle
Black Wattle
Acacia mearnsii is a fast-growing leguminous tree native to Australia. Common names for it include Black Wattle, Acácia-negra , Australian Acacia, Australische Akazie , Swartwattel , Uwatela...
, Swamp Gum
Swamp Gum
Swamp Gum may refer to a number of Eucalyptus species:*Eucalyptus bensonii, Mountain Swamp Gum*Eucalyptus camphora, Mountain Swamp Gum*Eucalyptus ovata, Swamp Gum*Eucalyptus regnans, Swamp Gum*Eucalyptus rudis, Swamp Gum...
and Drooping Sheoak. However, early settlers soon removed much of the vegetation. Since 1961, Tower Hill has been revegetated and is now home to koala
Koala
The koala is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae....
s, kangaroo
Kangaroo
A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country...
s, emu
Emu
The Emu Dromaius novaehollandiae) is the largest bird native to Australia and the only extant member of the genus Dromaius. It is the second-largest extant bird in the world by height, after its ratite relative, the ostrich. There are three subspecies of Emus in Australia...
s and many bird species. A number of walks, picnic areas and public facilities are located within the Reserve.
The local cemetery is the Tower Hill Cemetery located on the South Eastern slopes of Tower Hill. The first recorded burials at the Tower Hill cemetery began in 1859. Charles Pye
Charles Pye
Charles Pye VC was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.-Details:...
, an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, died in Kirkstall on 12 July 1876 and is buried at Tower Hill.
Within the cemetery, there is a marble column over the grave of William McLean. The epitaph, believed to have been written by Henry Lawson, reads: “Erected by his fellow unionists and admirers in memory of their comrade, William John McLean who was shot by a non-unionist at Grassmere, New South Wales, during the bush struggle in 1894 and who died 22 March, aged 26 years. A good son and faithful mate and a devoted unionist, Union is strength”. The related events are known as the 1894 shearers' strike.
Nobel Prize-winning Australian biologist Sir Macfarlane Burnet's mother, née Hadassah Pollock Mackay, was born in Koroit in 1872. Her Glasgow schoolteacher father emigrated to Australia in the late 1850s and settled in Koroit. After Burnet's death in August 1985, he was buried at the local cemetery.
Amenities
The Koroit police station was established on Commercial Road on 30 May 1867. The Koroit railway station began operations in 1889, with a brick building replacing an original timber structure in 1907. However, train services to Koroit ceased in September 1977 when the lines west from Dennington and north from Koroit were closed. The Koroit and District Memorial Health Services facility is on Mill Street providing health services including nursing home, adult day centre, district nursing service, and attached medical centre and incorporating child and adolescent mental health services. The facility began as a full service hospital in 1954 and was converted to the current use in 1994. The Koroit Library is located within the original Koroit Borough Chambers on High Street and is open for limited periods on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.Within the town, the Koroit Botanic Gardens form part of a large, central recreational area, and were designed by notable landscape architect
Landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...
, William Guilfoyle
William Guilfoyle
William Robert Guilfoyle was a landscape gardener and botanist in Victoria, Australia, acknowledged as the architect of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne and was responsible for the design of many parks and gardens in Melbourne and regional Victoria.-Early life:Guilfoyle was born in Chelsea,...
. The gardens were established in 1862 with an area of approximately three hectares in High Street. Koroit's War Memorial is located on the edge of the Botanic Gardens. In addition to The Olde Courthouse Inn, Koroit hosts two hotels in the main street, Commercial Road, the Commercial Hotel and Mickey Bourke's Koroit Hotel.
The Koroit and Tower Hill Butter and Cheese Factory Company Ltd was established in Koroit in the 1890s. An expanded facility continues today on the same site as part of the Murray Goulburn Co-operative Co. Limited. The facility is Australia's largest milk
Milk
Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...
processing plant in terms of milk volume. From a three-hectare site on Commercial Road, the company runs a fleet of tankers collecting milk from suppliers throughout Western Victoria and South Australia. The site produces cream, buttermilk, anhydrous milk fat (AMF) and a wide variety of milk powders, for both local and international markets.
The former Tower Hill Lake National School in High Street near the Koroit Oval is the least altered of three surviving substantially intact examples of schools of the National School era existing in Victoria. Its design is unusual in that it is built to an H-shaped plan with the classrooms flanking the teacher's residence. It is significant to the Koroit community as its oldest building, having been constructed in the same year that the township was surveyed (1857), and was the venue for the first election and the early meetings of the Koroit Borough Council following a break away from the Belfast Shire in 1870.
Recreation
The annual Lake School of Celtic Music, Song and Dance by the Lake School Committee subcommittee of the Koroit Community Association takes place in January. The Koroit to Warrnambool Half MarathonHalf marathon
A half marathon is a road running event of . It is half the distance of a marathon and usually run on roads. Participation in half marathons has grown steadily recently. One of the main reasons for this is that it is a challenging distance, but does not require the same level of training that a...
takes place in August of each year. The Koroit Agricultural Show takes place annually in November. The Koroit Irish Festival is a celebration of Irish heritage via music. Live music is featured at the hotels whilst a hive of market activity and music emanates from over 100 stalls and six stages set up along the main street. The festival includes street performers, arts and crafts and a variety of children's activities and entertainment. The festival is held annually on the weekend prior to the first Thursday in May.
Koroit is at the centre of a recreational trail under construction along a decommissioned railway line that ran between Warrnambool, Koroit and Port Fairy. The vision is for a 30 km recreational trail starting at Lake Pertobe in Warrnambool, passing through fertile farmland to Koroit (with a connection to Tower Hill) and finishing at the fishing village of Port Fairy.
The town has an Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
team, the Koroit Saints
Koroit Football Club
The Koroit Football Club are an Australian rules football club which compete in the Hampden Football League.They are based in the Victorian town of Koroit and have played in the Hampden Football League since 1961.-Maskell Medallists:*Anthony Mahony 1996...
, playing in the Hampden Football League.