Living and working in the Kimberley Part 3

PART 3

THE Old Liveringa homestead

Today’s Liveringa Station is very different to the original one which started in1884.  It has seen many changes due to floods, droughts, fires and the general change of managers.  The original homestead is now heritage listed and on its own title so if the current owner ever sells Liveringa Station the homestead will not be part of it.  The homestead is about 25 km’s away from what we now call Liveringa Station, which is where all the staff live and work.  



This is the Old Liveringa Homestead today. Looma is about 2km to the left, Camballin about 10km away behind the hill and then about another 10km on from Camballin is the stations main hub.



Here is closer view. The main house is up on the hill with the closest building to it being the old kitchen. The very large shed on the left is the shearers quarters the one in front of that the work shop shed. Then the roof closest to you on the right is the shearers shed. The small shed in the middle was once the blacksmiths shop. The little roof on the right in the trees is a horse stable. 



  There is a book/ folder which covers much of the history of Liveringa so I am going to summerise from it and try and explain the history of the station.

The land was first purchased in 1881 by a so called corrupt committee of the Kimberley Pastoral Company who rigged a ballot to purchase land leases in the Kimberley. The station was under the management of Mr John McLarty who got it up and going. It was sheep that was first farmed on this land; the sheep were brought up by boat from Fremantle. The ships could only then dock in the King Sound near Beagle Bay and from there they were walked down to the station. On November 30, 1881 a ship named AMUR arrived in the King Sound after a few navigational areas and landed half of the sheep and all of the horses and dogs for Liveringa. The remainder of the livestock and plant equipment went ashore the next day. Mr John McLarty and his brother were also on this ship.

  The first stone building was built around 1888 in a prime position high on a hill above a billabong on the Uralla Creek. Many local Aborigines worked on stations in the Kimberley learning skills such as fencing, shearing, construction, cooking and cleaning. Unfortunately they also learnt to steal and many ended up in prisons for this.

Willie Mc Larty took over the very successful business from his brother in 1890, expanding the farming even further using more Aboriginal workers.  Due to Willie’s eyesight failing him in 1901 Percy Rose took on the management position.  He further improved the stations position with farming and infrastructure.

 In 1904 a large stone kitchen and storeroom was constructed then four years on in 1908 the homestead was rebuilt in the stonework we see today.  




This is the old  kitchen building. It is missing a coldroom which was added
on under the verandah, they hope to rebuild it oneday.
The main house is to the left. The cook/ maid had to walk up
steep stairs to get to the main house each time a meal was served.






This is looking down from the main house to the kitchen, just to give you an idea how high
up the house is from the kitchen. The view is wonderful looking out over the land. The billabong
is amongst the trees you see on the flat. The wide verandah's and iron railing around the house wasn't added until after the 1940's or 1950's.





 In 1911 Liveringa was one of Australia’s largest sheep stations with a flock of 98,000 head, unfortunately three years later floods killed up to 30,000 sheep and alot of the feed was dwindling so tough times were ahead, but they still managed to be one of the most productive sheep stations in the Kimberley. 


This is what is left of an out station called Paradise. It is on  Liveringa land and was a
mini version of the main station.  They had sheep yards, a shearing shed and quite a few
houses here. I am not sure of its full history  it may have been leased as a seperate sheep station.



The old stove.



One of the old fibro houses.

 In the 1920’s they started introducing cattle and they had around 40,000 sheep and 10,000 cattle on their 1,000,000 acres.   In 1930 Kim and Pat Rose took over and stayed until 1961 seeing many changes happen to Liveringa. 



Here is a photo of the station in the 1940's you can see many of the same buildings as I mentioned in the first photo.  In this photo you can see the billabong very clearly.



 The document I am using has a great description of what buildings were around the homestead in 1956; swimming pool, tennis court, visitors quarters, overseer’s and jackeroos quarters, store, kitchen, man’s quarters, motor shed, three married men’s houses, shearing shed, shearing quarters and a building which is divided and used for workshop, petrol room and storage of materials used on the station. The native’s camp (the aboriginal workers) which was next to the homestead had what they called a Nissan Hut ( you can see this in the photo  above), and shade houses with water connected to wash basins, showers and a septic tank. Then the stations acreage was 1,000,000, it was fenced into 40 paddocks and there were 65 bores with windmills and 6 dams.   



This is looking down from the main house verandah the building is the pool room and you can just make out the inground pool infront of it. The pool is empty now but it used to be filled with bore water so it wasn't the clearest water. Further on you can see the billabong.



In the 1950’s Kim Rose had started experimenting with fodder for his sheep and cattle. Apparently Rose asked Kim Durack to come to the property and help set up irrigation for fodder/ crops because Durack had been doing irrigation on the Ord River for some years already and Rose wanted his help. Finally in 1952 Kim Durack came and started an experiment with growing rice on the Uralla Creek in the Camballin area of Liveringa;  hence the construction of the Camballin Homestead and better conditions for the town of Camballin.  In 1955 Liveringa leased 2,000 acres of their land out to Northern Developments Ltd to grow rice, this lead to many changes.  

 By 1957 the WA Government had passed the Northern Developments Pty. Limited Agreement act. Under this act, Northern Developments gained 20,000 acres of leasehold land in the heart of Liveringa Station. It also required the government to establish and keep in repair the township of Camballin, access roads and bridges, a weir across the Uralla Creek (now called 17 mile dam), associated irrigation channels, and a barrage across the Fitzroy River.  This changed many things about the station over the next decade with the increase of traffic and the water flow being altered by weirs and most importantly the heart of the station was being used for cropping.  Northern Developments left in 1966 with the crop not being very viable. With the retirement of the Roses an era finished at Liveringa, no longer was there a share holder of the Kimberley Pastoral Company involved in the station. Short term managers followed; Henry Gooch, Anthony Male and John Fisher with no real huge benefit to the stations operations. They just kept the stock side going so the station wasn’t at a total loss.



The plaque at the barage on the Fitzroy River. The date it opened was 4th December 1961.



What is left of the barage built by the government on the Fitzroy River to help with the irrigation of the land on Liveringa Station. The Urella Creek comes into the Fitzroy on the left, so when they wanted more water flowing into it the would raise the gates and force the water into the creek. 



What is left of the mechanics to open and close the gates of the barage.





This is where the Urella creek meets the fitzroy. Tom and Charlie are having a go at turning the very rusty gates which used to control the flow of water into the creek. The building up on the right is the pump house. In the dry there would be big engines pumping water into the Urella creek when the Fitzroy was to low to feed into it. But in the wet and floods the engines would be moved up the tracks into the pump house so it wouldn't get damaged in the floods. We have seen a video of the floods in 1986 which were the highest they have on record and the water was up to the bottom of that pump house, so much water. Below is a photo showing you how high up that house is.   




The pump house.
As you can see this area is a very popular spot for locals to come camping and fishing.







This is what is left of the wier at 17 mile dam which is on the Urella Creek. The damage you see is from the many floods it has had to endure.In the 1986 floods you could only see the walkway across the top! There is no support under the concrete it has all been washed away.  




 

The very green stagnant water in the dam just waiting to dry up totally if it doesn't rain.



1969 the Australian Land and Cattle Company (ALCCO) purchased Liveringa, Camballin and other Kimberley properties as part of a business project that aimed to create a feedlot for cattle on the Liveringa/ Camballin land. I believe it was in this era that Jack Fletcher got involved working for the ALCCO and he lived in the Camballin Homestead for 18 years trying to make the irrigation systems work. 1972 was when the last of the Liveringa sheep were sold.  

By 1977 the relevance of the Liveringa Homestead really  had very little to do with the daily running of the station, only a caretaker was in the residence so the homestead was in need of much repair.

1982 A receiver was appointed to manage the then Camballin Farms and ALCCO was asked to vacate the Homestead. There was a station manager, Wayne Thompson, who lived out at Paradise Homestead, which was a smaller homestead on Liveringa land; it was set up in its prime time to help with the running of the sheep. He was working on fencing for the cattle which was needed after many floods.

1984- The Liveringa Homestead was classified to the National Trust of WA.

After this many caretakers lived in the homestead and slowly it is being worked on and returned to its original state, or as close to it as viable. As I said at the beginning it no longer has anything to do with the operation of the station but it is now a piece of history which should be looked after.

This is the homestead from the back, the grass and gravel  is where the tennis court used to be. Mandy and Brad
are the current caretakers and have done alot of work on the gardens and up keep of the place.

A better picture showing the stone work. Frank Rodriguez who built Camballin Homestead also did work on this house. This is looking at the verandah that overlooks the pool and billabong. The stone homestead only has three rooms in it and the rooms are not connected internally. There is a detatched kitchen, bathroom and laundry built out of fibro cement sheets behind where I am standing to take the photo. 




This is the 17stand shearing and wool sorting shed.



A closer view of the shearers stand, the wood on the floor is the original wood still.



Looking into the Shearers quarters. This is where the shearers lived. They slept on wired single beds with a thin matress to the right  and ate at long tables on the left of the shed. There is a kitchen at the front on the left.
Check out the hand basins.





I am not totally sure when this photo was taken but it would only have been in about the last four years. A fire caused damage to the original  work sheds but it has all been repaired now.



And just to finish off with a great arial shot taken in 2011....



An amazing transformation that takes place in the wet.....