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.
28th 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.
Rabbit 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.
The image below was taken in England of the Sloper family into which one of Alfie's sisters (bottom right) married. Top right is another sister then Alfie.
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,
 
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,
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