Salvaging history

By RUSSELL BENNETT
SOME of the most defining chapters in Gembrook’s history still lay in a pile of rain-soaked rubble, months after a giant pine came crashing through the town’s old post office and general store.
And both local and state authorities are passing the buck(s) over just who is responsible for the clean up.
In March an enormous pine tree crashed through the old North Gembrook store and post office at Ure Road’s historic Silver Wells settlement.
The store was full of artifacts and other crucial historic objects, dating back as far as the 1870s.
Generations of Gembrook Primary School students would tour the site as one of their strongest links to bygone eras of their hometown.
And even though Silver Wells is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register, the owners of the property have been unable to secure the money needed from the State Government to remove the tree from the building and recover the precious artifacts.
Gembrook stalwart Geoff Ure is a direct descendent of John and Jane Ure – early settlers who selected 213 acres of land in the town to move to in 1874.
The Ures named their property – Silver Wells – after the pure water they found when they sank their first well on the site.
The family desperately wants help in retrieving the artifacts from the ruins of the general store, but Heritage Council of Victoria’s stakeholder relations manager Pauline Hutchins said the maintenance and care of places on register was the responsibility of the land owners.
“The Heritage Council (had) offered $10,000 Places at Risk funding towards the removal of trees identified as being in poor condition and a risk, as well as some other conservation works,” she said.
“The owner eventually refused to proceed with these works and did not accept the grant.
“To date, the Heritage Council has not received any formal request for support in this case.”
Geoff’s father, Robert ‘Bob’ Ure, was born at Silver Wells and lived a good part of his life there.
His pride and joy in his later life was his kitchen garden, located directly behind the store and post office complex and in front of a host of giant pines.
In Bob’s failing health in the early 2000s, his garden became his refuge – a place where irreplaceable and fading memories were temporarily rekindled.
In 2005, unable to provide the funds himself, Geoff Ure entered into an agreement with Heritage Victoria for $10,000 to pay for the removal of three pine trees before they started to lose their limbs and pose a risk to the Silver Wells settlement.
But removing the pines in one fell swoop would have meant destroying his father’s garden haven below.
Geoff’s family wanted the tree behind the garden to be removed in sections, as to preserve what was possibly Bob’s final crop.
Geoff said he remembered being told that all three trees behind the garden and general store would be felled at once, or none of the works would be undertaken.
Faced with the choice of adhering to the proposal and receiving $10,000 to remove the trees, or save his father’s garden – Geoff’s choice was easy: save the sanctuary.
Bob died in 2007.
Five years later and one of those pines fell directly on top of the old general store.
Emerald SES members volunteered their time to place a tarpaulin over the store after the tree fell in March, but the site has remained untouched since.
Gembrook MP Brad Battin referred the matter on to Heritage Victoria, while Cardinia Shire Council spokesman Paul Dunlop said the shire would carry works on the site, but they would cost more than $10,000 and it needed consent from the Ure family given they would be undertaken on private land.
“If we obtain this consent, works can be organsed this year,” Mr Dunlop said.
“Council will continue to support the preservation of the buildings in whatever way we can.”