Savernake Station

About

Savernake Station is a heritage-listed working farm located at 2341 Mulwala Road, Savernake, Federation Council, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed and built from 1862. It is also known as Savernake Homestead. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 15 March 2013. The heritage listing includes the station's moveable heritage, including significant collections and archives relating to the property.

The Bangerang people used the River Murray as a thoroughfare and were famous for their bark canoes: the banks of the Murray today still have a relatively large number of older trees with the wood exposed where bark for canoes was cut out in the early nineteenth century or before [scar trees]. As late as 1848 the squatter E. M. Curr travelled on the river with an Aboriginal guide in a 6-metre-long (20 ft) canoe with a traditional fire "burning on a hearth of clay in the bows" to grill fish or duck en route.

"The Bangerang found plentiful food, shellfish and Murray cod in the river and fruit, tubers and nuts in the adjacent country... In 1845 the census of Aborigines in the Murrumbidgee Pastoral District, which included the Murray, estimated the total number as some two thousand... The large middens along the river, on both banks, suggested that there had been in the past a higher density population."

The dislocation by Europeans of normal Aboriginal routines of life was increasingly severe from the 1840s onwards, but already in the 1830s and probably earlier, European diseases, influenza, smallpox and syphilis, had taken a terrible toll of both Wiradjuri and Bangeran.' Some Aboriginal people adapted to the occupation of their land by working on the farms - in stockmen roles for men and domestic service and childcare roles for women.

Mulwala Homestead was founded as part of the process of pastoral development of the vast Riverina region. Squatters started moving into the eastern Riverina in the late 1820s as the area's pastoral potential was recognised by settlers. The region's Aboriginal inhabitants were displaced as the tide of settlement advanced.

An early settler at Mulwala was George Hillas, but the central story of the property is that of the Sloane family. Alexander Sloane emigrated from Scotland to Australia in 1849. He married Annabella née Gibson in 1856 and they had a family. In 1853 Sloane formed a pastoral company and in 1862 he purchased Savernake, north of Mulwala village, where he had nearly 5000 sheep by January 1863. In 1864 he purchased Mulwala Station from Hillas. Here the Sloanes lived in the slab hut built by Hillas, near a lagoon close to the Murray River, which they extended and they built other buildings. Then a flood came in 1867 causing much damage. The Sloanes moved some of the buildings to a higher site and these formed the genesis of the Mulwala homestead complex.

Sheep numbers on Mulwala grew from 12,081 in 1865 to 60,604 by 1874, and the station attained a good reputation as a sheep stud. The 1890s depression, which ruined many properties, was weathered by the Sloanes, as Alexander turned to wheat farming to supplement the property's revenue, and he brought in share farmers. After Alexander's death in 1907, the property was divided up between his sons.

One section of the Sloane family continued to live in the Mulwala homestead with its reduced lands adjoining Savernake but this property has been unoccupied since the mid-1960s. It was bought by the Department of Defence in the 1980s. With the buildings empty the Mulwala complex has deteriorated.

A large and significant collection of archival material created throughout the Sloanes' occupation of Mulwala has been retained by the Sloane family branch at Savernake.

After Alexander Sloane's death in 1907 his five surviving sons each took over a portion of the family's consolidated holdings at Mulwala. One of the five sons, William Sloane (1860–1933) had married Jeanie Gordon (1875–1942) in London in 1898 and they took over the most northern part of the Mulwala Station, known as Savernake. Jeanie was an excellent amateur photographer whose detailed letters to her family in England about her experiences as a farmer's wife on this then remote Australian farm have been published by the Sloane family.

Ian Sloane (1903–1986), son of William and Jeanie, was an accomplished photographer and filmmaker, specialising in rural documentaries. The video "Heritage Farming in Australia" contains movie footage shot by Ian Sloane which documents farming practice on Savernake Station in the 1930s. There is a particular focus on the 1935–36 season which was a bumper year for the property's cereal crops, culminating in the construction of a record 180-ton cereal haystack on Savernake Station which provided fodder for the next decade through four severe droughts.

Alexander and Ann Sloane are the fourth generation of the Sloane family to live on and earn a living from Savernake Station, now reduced to 2,000 hectares (4,900 acres). They have four adult children. They continue farming dryland cereals, winter pasture, hay, and raise prime lamb. They nurture the indigenous native vegetation, operate a Farmstay Cottage and day tours on the property. They are members of "Learning from Farmers", an informal network of farmers across the Murray catchment who encourage others to adopt sustainable native vegetation within agricultural enterprises. Alexander's sister Helen Huggins also owns areas of Savernake Station, and operates her agricultural business independently. She has re-established the historic Mulwala Merino Stud, begun on the Savernake property in 1863. She produces wool and dryland cereals, and resides at "Woodpark", Jerilderie with her husband, Owen.

Comparisons with similar properties Savernake Station is comparable with " Meroogal ", Nowra, which dates from 1886, in that both homesteads were occupied by the one family over a long period of time and both properties retain substantial records and decipherable layers in their built fabric. As with the Savernake Station homestead, the pattern of living at Meroogal was first laid down in the 1880s, and repeated by successive generations. Furniture, household objects, letters, diaries, photographs and clothing, have remained at Meroogal, allowing insights into the personal lives of the occupants and permitting the understanding of the contribution made by each generation. The gardens of both homesteads have changed little since the 1920s. Both properties have undergone physical changes over the decades, but these have not obscured the early history. Rather, they have provided a demonstration of the different layers of history. Meroogal is listed on the State heritage register (SHR) and is owned by the Historic Houses Trust which runs it as a house museum.

Ben Chifley's House in Bathurst, dating from the 1880s, also compares to Savernake Station because of its moveable heritage still remaining in its original place of context. Chifley's House is listed on the SHR and owned by Bathurst Regional Council which runs it as a house museum.

Tocal Homestead, Paterson in the Hunter Valley, is comparable with Savernake Station for its collection of colonial farm buildings, such as homestead, manager's cottage, barn, and range of outbuildings and stockyards. As with Savernake, Tocal is still a functioning farm, and operates a tourism enterprise. While its buildings are more architecturally remarkable, including an early colonial barn built by convicts in the 1830s, a fine double-storey Regency homestead building from the 1840s, a barn designed by Edmund Blacket in the 1860s and an important collection of vernacular timber buildings, the property does not retain a comprehensive moveable heritage collection associated with the historic running of the farm.

The Bangerang people used the River Murray as a thoroughfare and were famous for their bark canoes: the banks of the Murray today still have a relatively large number of older trees with the wood exposed where bark for canoes was cut out in the early nineteenth century or before [scar trees]. As late as 1848 the squatter E. M. Curr travelled on the river with an Aboriginal guide in a 6-metre-long (20 ft) canoe with a traditional fire "burning on a hearth of clay in the bows" to grill fish or duck en route.

"The Bangerang found plentiful food, shellfish and Murray cod in the river and fruit, tubers and nuts in the adjacent country... In 1845 the census of Aborigines in the Murrumbidgee Pastoral District, which included the Murray, estimated the total number as some two thousand... The large middens along the river, on both banks, suggested that there had been in the past a higher density population."

The dislocation by Europeans of normal Aboriginal routines of life was increasingly severe from the 1840s onwards, but already in the 1830s and probably earlier, European diseases, influenza, smallpox and syphilis, had taken a terrible toll of both Wiradjuri and Bangeran.' Some Aboriginal people adapted to the occupation of their land by working on the farms - in stockmen roles for men and domestic service and childcare roles for women.

Mulwala Homestead was founded as part of the process of pastoral development of the vast Riverina region. Squatters started moving into the eastern Riverina in the late 1820s as the area's pastoral potential was recognised by settlers. The region's Aboriginal inhabitants were displaced as the tide of settlement advanced.

An early settler at Mulwala was George Hillas, but the central story of the property is that of the Sloane family. Alexander Sloane emigrated from Scotland to Australia in 1849. He married Annabella née Gibson in 1856 and they had a family. In 1853 Sloane formed a pastoral company and in 1862 he purchased Savernake, north of Mulwala village, where he had nearly 5000 sheep by January 1863. In 1864 he purchased Mulwala Station from Hillas. Here the Sloanes lived in the slab hut built by Hillas, near a lagoon close to the Murray River, which they extended and they built other buildings. Then a flood came in 1867 causing much damage. The Sloanes moved some of the buildings to a higher site and these formed the genesis of the Mulwala homestead complex.