From Bulla through Sunbury to Diggers Rest, homesteads and cellars built from volcanic bluestone indicate the early origins of European settlement.
From the 1790s to the 1850s economic and social change across Europe encouraged the venturesome to rush to Victoria – in the hopes of grabbing land, or to try their luck on the goldfields. On the road to Bendigo they walked through Keilor, The Gap, Diggers Rest. Digging for gold was hard work, living quarters basic, good food scarce and expensive, accidents happened. Their Miners Right permitted them to own a small block of land, but many hankered for the pastoral land to be made available for farming.
The 1862 Land Act encouraged goldseekers to settle on small properties, and to explore the growing of food crops. Its novel industries clause specified 30-acre leases (and a later right to purchase) outside the proclaimed agricultural areas for yeomen farmers to grow diverse crops to support the population that had greatly increased through the gold rushes. Among tobacco, olives, oranges, hops, cider apples almonds, peaches, mustard, mulberries/silkworms, sorghum, hemp, flax and cotton, vine planting became a favourite – 62 applicants within the first year, and some were experienced vignerons (Swiss and French). The Colonial Exhibition of 1861 had already featured 29 wine exhibitors from Geelong and Melbourne, Upper Yarra, Albury, Ballarat and Castlemaine.
The Intercolonial Exhibition of 1866 featured the wine of Victoria, NSW and SA. Here, the medals awarded to wines of the Sunbury region showed that wine could be grown south of the divide. At these local exhibitions producers could measure their wine against others in the colonies, and therefore ascertain the worth of sending their wine ‘home’ for judgment in Paris or Vienna (there in 1873 the judges were so impressed with the standard of Australian wines that they created a special diploma of honour).
The delight that gentlemen found in cultivating their vines can be seen in the words of Charles Maplestone, an architect who emigrated in 1853 to the goldfields, and for the Victorian Public Works Department designed many lighthouses, and lived in Heidelberg. “I know of no sight calculated to call forth gratitude to God for the bounties of His providence than the rich clusters of the luscious fruit and the beautiful foliage of the vine.” By 1860 he had a nursery of 7000 cuttings, and wrote to friends in England that “Victoria is destined to be a great wine growing country,” and promised to send them a bottle of Ivanhoe wine. His 1868 vintage produced 800 gallons of wine, 150 gallons of small wine (a vin ordinaire).
His son Harry became manager at Craiglee for politician winegrower, James Stewart Johnston, the Commissioner of Public Works. Sunbury had renown as the 12,7000 ha country seat of W.J.T. ‘Big’ Clarke extending from Macedon Ranges to Sunbury. (In 1874 his son, William built the 50-room mansion Rupertswood. He accompanied the English cricket team to Australia following the infamous game where cricket ‘died’ when Australia was victorious over the mother country.)
When the Bendigo railway was built as far as the Sunbury district, the population swelled with professional, political and commercial men who built a splendid home and demesne, and thought that viticulture would balance their busy lives. From 45 acres under vines in 1860, Sunbury’s crop grew to 328 in 1870-1.
James Stewart Johnstone lived at Craiglee from 1866-1872, building a fine home and 3-storey cellar on Jackson’s Creek, before returning to St Kilda, leaving Craiglee in the hands of his younger sons.
Across the creek was John Eadie’s Beneadie Vineyard, and R.S. Anderson’s Springvale Vineyard and cellars.
Nearby, on the steeper slopes, J.G. Francis, a wealthy merchant and acute politician, built Goona Warra, a fine bluestone home and winery.