Greetings fellow Foxies,
This picturesque ruin can be seen from the road on private property upslope of the creek containing Boondyne Spring (one of the earliest known springs east of Narrogin). In Ossie Pustkuchen’s book “The Way Through’, Michael Brown (“the father of Narrogin”) purchased a 4,000 acre (1600 ha) property Boondyne around 1890 to add to his extensive land empire. The 1894 lithograph shows it as Boundyne spring, and the Boundain railway siding was apparently named after the spring/farm.
I’m not sure who built the house. There is an intriguing mention of a shepherd Thos. Pennyfather at the spring in 1885, which predates the house, and may account for a quaint one-room building at the back. Neither Michael Brown nor his son Jack (who farmed the property) lived there. I suspect it was built for the next owners, the Leyden brothers.
The main house is a beautiful three-bedroom granite and brick place that would have been a fine house in its heyday. Wooden floors have mainly rotted away, but most walls are still intact and retain traces of attractive pastel kalsomine colours. The soil under the floorboards had an interesting layer of fossilised rat poo

On one side is a large rock-lined well, and downslope are ancient survivors of an extensive orchard.
At the rear is a quaint, low, partially-collapsed, one- room, granite block structure. The carefully built windows lead me to think that it was a cottage, but the end that may have contained a fireplace has collapsed.
About 200 metres away is the remains of a very early shearing/ machinery shed built from forked wandoo log uprights  supporting long log rafters that are wired on without nails.

Another building further along is a mystery. A granite central room that still has its roof has no windows and a door normally found on a barn. Wood and corrugated iron extensions are intriguing.
On the north side a cement floored area contain signs of more recent occupation by a rather versatile person. Some innovations include a bicycle wheel TV antenna and a shower inside a corrugated iron water tank.
The western annexe has a raised area used as a sheep pen that led to a hole in the wall to an open cement floored area facing south. Traces of a long bench make me think that it may have been used for butchering.

Greetings fellow Foxies,
This unassuming two room mud and granite cottage has a fascinating but sad history. The present owners call it “Lovers Cottage” after a couple who never occupied it together.
 
Alfie Knowles was born in Southampton England in 1895. He bought Location 5420 from farmer John Nowke. Alfie was a fine figure of a man (5 foot 4 inches tall just like me!).  He enlisted in the Australian army in 1916, and was awarded the Military Medal, and Medaille D’Honneur in France in 1918. Here is an extract from his army records in the National Archives of Australia.
29th Battalion AIF
8391 Pte William Robinson
4465 Pte A. Knowles
During the attack East of Villiers Brettonneux near Amiens, on the morning of 8th August 1918, an enemy strongpoint was encountered, and the advance was held up. These two men on their own initiative, rushed forward with their Lewis Gun, opened fire and inflicted heavy casualties, causing the garrison of 20 to surrender. Their action enabled the advance to continue.

Alfie was hospitalised in England with Trench Foot and met a lady who became his fiancé. He was discharged on 4th November 1919, returned to the farm and built the cottage. Tragically he was kicked by a horse on 7th April 1921, and died from a ruptured spleen. His fiancé was on a ship from England to Australia, at this time and did not learn of his death until she arrived at Cuballing. The poor woman stayed in Cuballing for some months before returning home.
 The government eventually sent Alfie’s medals to his mother in the Isle of Wight in 1924. Many years later a letter was sent to the Postmaster: Cuballing Western Australia by a person who found his military medal on an Isle of Wight beach.
Rabbi trapper Danny Townsend lived in the cottage during the Second World War, but apart from that it remained as a memento of a remarkable story. It is on private land and is not available for viewing.
To their credit, the existing owners have reroofed the cottage so that it will still be standing for another 100 years.
For a visual exploration of the cottage ctrl+ click  https://photos.app.goo.gl/FkFWS49upWTKX2Zg2

Greetings fellow Foxies,
 The name refers to the evocative ruin on the hill to the left of the Great Southern Highway just before the Chuggamunning Road turnoff, but there are a range of names relating to the property. The earliest lithograph I could find shows a Jugominning Spring, and Ossie Pustkuchen refers to Shuggamony Spring, and the infamous hill that tested locomotives is Chuggamunning Hill.
Elijah Quartermaine junior sailed out from England with his family in 1838, and received title to a plot of land containing Chuggamunning spring. His house (Chuggamunny) was built on the hill about 200 metres upslope from the spring, and the family shepherded sheep on surrounding land. In 1866, two escaped convicts surprised them one night and stole a double barrelled gun, a revolver, ammunition and rations, and left them unharmed.
In 1868, the house and property was sold to William Farrah Lukin, a remarkable district pioneer. William had extensive sheep leases with JH Monger and William Shaddick around Narrogin out to Toolibin. A restless and ambitious man, he took up a pastoral lease east of Derby that ended disastrously when a flood killed all 14,000 of his sheep. He then went to the Klondyke Goldfields in the Yukon in hope of regaining his fortune and disappeared from history (possibly killed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake).
A neighbour James Doust leased the property and moved into the house in the 1880’s.
James and wife Elizabeth built a mud-batt building to the north of their house that Elizabeth ran as a boarding house for railway workers, farm hands and teachers from the Cuballing School. Only a few foundation walls remain, which indicate that the 5 bedrooms were tiny. The house looks much larger in the historic images supplied by the Narrogin Library, so I suspect that other rooms had a dirt floor.
There are rumours of much rum drinking and wild gambling at the boarding house. Elizabeth was a kindly soul and also the local midwife. I wonder how the Doust household coped with rowdy dissolute behaviour less than 20 metres away from their house.
There are even rumours of a ghost but hooooo knows
The Google Photo album of old and new images shows the stone house’s deterioration. The ancient York gum by the house has a huge split in its trunk with one half threatening to complete the destruction.

See the images on https://photos.app.goo.gl/UqDi87SutkeDFuHa6
References
'The Way Through: The Story of Narrogin' O.E Pustkuchen
'Numbat Country: The Story of the shire of Cuballing from Earliest Times until 1997' E. Roots.

Greetings fellow Foxies,
 
After exploring Wickepin Springs, I decided to have a squiz at Gillimanning, the next ‘town’ on the proposed East Cuballing railway route. It is a reserve on the Pingelly-Wickepin Road. Gillimanning was established in 1905 and never grew more than a school and a hall, although it had an active progress association. Now there is just a memorial rock in a parking bay. Apart from a closed gravel pit the reserve itself has interesting and good condition bush.
The Gillimanning well is on private property a few km to the north
On the side of a slope along Gillimanning Road I found an interesting sight on the side of a steep slope. A cottage with a car-tree!
The tiny galvanised iron wall and roofed cottage was the home of George Riley, A Noongar farm worker. With no power or water it must have been freezing in winter and baking hot in summer.
George owned the (Dodge?) ute downslope, that rested there after an accident. The old rock she-oak growing out of the engine bay is a testament to the decades that it has been immobile.
For a visual exploration of the site on Google Photos click 
https://photos.app.goo.gl/YMRjoewU62UHmLFS7

Greetings fellow Foxies,
 
This edition is almost entirely based on word of mouth; I hope that it stimulates discussion that reveals more information.
 A colleague took me to a remarkable high point on his family farm between Yornaning and present Wickepin called Wickepin Springs. It is labelled Wickepin on the old lithographs and having permanent spring water, was apparently targeted as a town along a railway line from Cuballing to Kalgoorlie.
Sometime around the turn of the 20th century, there was a plan to construct a railway line to transport coal from Collie to Kalgoorlie. Cuballing was initially selected as the junction with the Northam-Albany line. Businesses and fine buildings sprung up, and farmers flocked to settle land east of Cuballing to have close access to a siding.
Neighbouring Narrogin was a serious rival (what’s new), despite a disadvantage of the steep section the existing railway at Chugamunning Hill between Narrogin and Cuballing where two locomotives were required to get up the slope ( if the junction was at Cuballing, Perth-bound freight from east and west could avoid the hill).
Narrogin representatives wined and dined the relevant minister, which started a petitioning war to government with rumours of false signatures. In 1906 Narrogin was declared the winner, ostensibly because a Collie-Narrogin line was in construction. However a Cuballing resident told me that the minister had bought land east of Narrogin. (Hmm!)
So instead of a line from Cuballing Wickepin Springs, Gillimanning Yealering, We have Narrogin, Wickepin, Yealering.

The Mungerungcutting race track named after the adjoining Mungerungcutting Soak, remained in use for many years after the present Wickepin townsite was established.
The name Wickepin may have originated from Woorkabing Hill, a large granite rock with the  tower on Gillimanning Road.
Wickepin Spring is at the base of a large rocky outcrop.
We found remnants of an old mud and granite general store and a loading ramp, and with another spring up near the top of the Wickepin Springs rock.
 
For a visual exploration of the site on Google Photos click  https://photos.app.goo.gl/VJPr7HwiefHCJBTd6

Greetings fellow Foxies,
 
When I came to Narrogin in 1986, I noticed an interesting abandoned cottage on the Williams-Kulin Road on the curve opposite the road to Macco Feeds with one sheet of the galvanised iron roof missing. I wish I had visited it then, as most of the roof has now gone and weather has attacked the whole structure.
The building is the old Anglican parsonage, and the only building in the abandoned Bannister (Williams) township, that was surveyed in 1846. At this time surveyor Gregory was surveying grazing leases at the Williams River, and for Hamersley, Phillips and others nearby. Another townsite called Williamsburgh on the Williams River near Boraning Bridge had been established in 1836 with a military base (10 soldiers?) to protect new settlers.
Why have two closely placed townships? Historical information is mixed but my guess is that it relates to other existing settlements at the time. Kojonup was well established to the south, and Beverley/York to the North. Williamsburgh is on a direct extension of the York-Beverley Road. Bannister is situated to the east below a defensible high point (Kondinning Katta: an outcrop of the Binneringie Dyke that passes through Foxes Lair) at a strategic track crossing. From here one track follows 14 Mile Brook north-west to Mourambine, and another along the Williams River to Kunderning pool and on to Wolwolling Pool. The first occupant of the parsonage was Reverend John Withers. Constable Edward John Barron was apparently stationed at Bannister for 7 years, before resigning to become the first owner of “Minnigin”, and substantial land owner.
At this time the existing Williams town site did not exist. That occurred after 1855 when the Albany Highway was constructed by convicts supervised by Lieutenant Crossman.
Down from the parsonage closer to the road, is a plaque that states that it was used by the Reverend Gillett from Mourambine. I think that this is unlikely as the Reverend was the first minister for the Mourambine Church in 1889.
The plaque also mentions two graves that are now obscured at the parking area downslope at the well on the river.
Another sad story associated with the graves. Settler Henry Grainger and his wife had three children on a nearby property. The youngest girl died when her clothes caught fire, and her mother became seriously ill and died two years later. Consider the plight of women in those days. Voluminous petticoats were a real fire risk; cripes they must have been hot stuck in hot little shacks cooking meals and wearing layers of tight fitting clothes. The pong must have been eye watering (men too).
The old town site was acquired by the Cowcher family and the parsonage became a farm house for many years.
It was modified and extended, but the original mud-cemented granite stone walls are showing where erosion has stripped away overlying wallpaper and lime render. It is on private land and not available for viewing without permission.
Images contain two lithographs showing the town site. The earliest (about 1870) shows that adjoining land was in large blocks, mainly grazing leases. By the time of the second (1894) lithograph, locations had been surveyed for Anglican and Catholic churches, but none were built. Note that most large grazing leases had been replaced by numerous small freehold farm and homestead blocks that followed better soils along the rivers.
 
For a visual exploration of the cottage on Google Photos click   https://photos.app.goo.gl/D3vg1KLkM9V6Ta8v1.

Greetings fellow Foxies,
Recently I was invited to see a wonderful stone structure on a private property that has a sad story. Below is a quote from Gwen Warren’s book “Wolwolling Reflections”
Pustkuchen (Two sons and their mother“Family, had cleared 150 acres (60ha) and fenced and poison grubbed the rest, about 500 acres in all. They were in the process of building an excellent stone cottage along the creek in a beautiful setting when the country was burnt out by one of the many fires that escaped in those hot summers. This brought up such a dense growth of Heart–leaf poison that they were forced to abandon it”.
This was one of many family setbacks at a time when many local men experienced World War 1 and the 1930’s great depression. Most new settlers in the area went broke and walked off leaving a debt to the Agricultural Bank. Those that hung on gradually bought out the debts and built up many of the farms we see today.
The house consists of nearly complete stone walls of carefully placed granite blocks and smaller pieces cemented by local mud. A wonderful example of German precision, but the structure is weakening as mud washes out.
The family lived in a smaller bush structure alongside, of which, only a stone chimney remains.
Unfortunately, the once attractive river terrace site with fresh water soak, has now become saline.

Update: It is likely that the house was built by Kurt Pustkuchen (D.O.B. 30/07/1908), (Ossie's brother)  before he married Marion Knox in 1934. and moved to another farm further north on Dumberning Rd.
Clues to the family’s connection with South Australia are:

1. Sugar Gum (Eucalyptus cladocalyx), and Kurrajong (Brachychiton populneus Vic, NSW Qld) trees.
2. Reference to Heart –leaf poison that does not occur in WA agricultural areas. The Gastrolobium poison plants were probably local Box and York Road poisons.

 For a visual exploration Crtl+click this link

Greetings fellow Foxies,
While scouring the countryside for titbits of information to satisfy my readers, I often come across remnant sheds, farm houses and machinery that are slowly returning to the soil.
It is clear to me that a BIG AUSTRALIA with megacities of multicultural people who have no interest in the heritage of a depopulated rural area is inevitable.
I am fascinated by rural history; People led a tough but usually rewarding life. I am posting images of places I find on Google Photos to leave a record of their existence.
This link contains images of the abandoned Virgo family farmhouse south east of Highbury. Private property.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QeeQKxvgjZj1N6w33
The house, probably built in the early 20th century is mainly weatherboard with a corrugated iron roof and printed metal ceilings. It would have been hot in summer and freezing in winter, but a great advance on earlier mud batt and mud brick places. Earliest dwellings consisted of calsomine painted hessian walls with a tin or brush roof. Imagine the privations of an English wife who came to this with only a camp oven for cooking and water carted from a nearby soak.
I was privileged to find historic undergarments!

Greetings fellow Foxies,
Brooklyn Farm Williams location 3177 ( 680 acres 275ha) is one of the early farms in the Lol Gray area, that were established at the turn of the 20th century by ‘enthusiastic pioneers who soon found it impossible to make a living on these very small holdings. These people were mainly English settlers who had been convinced by the government propaganda of the time, that they would be successful farmers’ (source Numbat Country - The story of Cuballing shire - from earliest times to 1997).
Lol Gray was an English immigrant in the 1800’s who was a shepherd and sandalwood cutter, and who dug the (now buried) Lol Gray soak on the Lol Gray Road/ Narrogin Wandering Road intersection. The flooded gum hollow here would have been a wonderful cool place for students of the Lol Gray School on the other side of the road.
Brooklyn Farm was originally owned by Clem Marwick of York, followed by a number of succeeding inhabitants. The building shown here was a brick and iron combined house, shearing shed, and machinery shed. Surrounded by bits of historic machinery, it was still being used to crutch sheep when a storm blew it down. Fascinating spot (private property not available to visitors).
For a visual exploration Crtl+click this link https://photos.app.goo.gl/7LmfwJh3EFGolVWc2

Greetings fellow Foxies,

By chance I was shown an old image titled “Booran Pool” that features three boys with one astride a sheep or dog, on a pool/crossing that resembles Rocky Crossing/Kunderning Pool.
A bit of research led to a small reserve containing a granite shelf across the creek – the Booran Pool crossing. It is another link in the chain of pools that were essential stops on the earliest trail from Perth/Williams that connected settlements at Narrakine Gully and Wolwolling Pool. They were also vital for Noongars, shepherds and sandalwood transporters. A few homesteaders had quite large grazing leases in the district, and employed shepherds to tend flocks of sheep that grazed in natural grassland. Shepherds   (Noongars, free settlers, and ticket of leave convicts) lived a hard and lonely life in the bush, returning to the homesteads only at shearing. Before shearing, sheep had to be washed (apparently a terrible job) in pools of water.

There was even a Booran Pool cricket team!
The pool is on the edge of the Dumberning estate that was progressively converted to freehold farms.

I was lucky enough to visit nearby ruins on private land. Two houses once stood here. The more recent is now two fine chimneys and a water tank. Nearby is an almost melted mud batt cottage and the skeleton of a wooden barn that would have had a bush thatch roof. The jewels at this site are two Sunshine harvesters adjoining a massive fig tree. It was pretty hot when I visited, but so cool under the fig. Early farms were almost self-sufficient. Besides sheep farming, farmers sold fruit, dairy products, hay and grain, and often collected sandalwood and brown mallet bark in hard times.

Edith Darby who lived here wrote "My father Kenneth Darby purchased this property consisting of 429 acres in April  1946 and farmed it until December 1959.  It was purchased from Jack (John?) Stevens.  From O. Pustkuchen's records it seems his father, also John, had property  further north (up on the rise). 
We lived in the mud batt house until the timber framed/asbestos house was completed in about July 1954.  There was a well very close to the rear of the batt house on which Dad erected a windmill and overhead tank.  Unfortunately after a number of years the water became too salty for the poultry and garden. 
When we moved to the new house Dad had a dam just north of this house enlarged.  Dad removed the well windmill and re-erected it on this dam for the house garden.  He erected an overhead tank close to this house.  I don't know who built the batt house. It had no ceilings in the 5 rooms.
There were a couple of bough sheds/stables/chaff room then Dad erected an iron shed for machinery and shearing.   He put in the sheep dip by the yards.     I seem to remember another "dip"  in the creek immediately due West of these sheds where there was bit of  a stone "causeway"/crossing and a rather deep pool."

I am fascinated by these places that are a rapidly disappearing part of our history.
Below is a link to a folder of images of the ruins in Google Photos.
Click on the first image after opening the link  https://photos.app.goo.gl/QMBfrVQgf0ilHpB32