Going, going, gone!

The Valley Homestead and yards

District of Gungahlin, Block 518 (Part) ACT Planning Series 1:10 000 Map 208 612. North east of Gungahlin Drive, south east of the Burgmann Anglican School, Gungahlin Town Centre.

The house on this site was built by Thomas Gribble, who emigrated from England in 1857 and married Catherine Warren in 1860. The couple settled in Gungahlin in the 1860s in a slab house; by 1874 they had seven children.

The Gribbles, like many other settlers, arrived in bush land with limited capital and a strong desire to prosper. Trees were cleared and crops sown quickly to provide self sufficiency as there was little alternative. Some settlers had too little land in marginal areas and were unable to make a living so they moved on, leaving their rough slab huts deserted, but the Gribbles were on good land and their industry led to success.

As the family grew settlers added timber or stone extensions to their houses or built a new house next to the old slab building. The Gribbles built a stone house in 1887 and when a reporter from the "Town and Country Journal" visited the property the new house was described as "commodious and comfortable".

Between 1874 and 1878 the Gribbles built a large square rammed earth or "pisé de terre" room beside the stone house. The pisé method was popular in the Canberra area as it was cheap, easy to construct and appropriate for the climate. The house eventually had four bedrooms, a sitting room, a timber enclosed verandah at the rear used as a sewing room, a loft above and a verandah along the front. The pisé living room had a large fireplace with a log arch across the front and a brick oven beside the chimney.

Between 1881 and 1892 a small private school operated in a building close to the eastern side of the house near the house, possibly in the original slab hut. The teacher was Alfred Mainwaring Rich, who had come out from England as a surgeon on a ship.

The sites of small sheds behind the house and the layout of the outbuildings in the paddock to the west of the house were recorded by CAS in 1991.

Thomas Gribble was famous in the Canberra area by his innovative adoption of new farming practices, particularly heavy machinery. He was dubbed "The Boss Farmer" by "The Wizard", the Ginninderra correspondent for the Goulburn Evening Penny Post. His new steam engines were replacing the old methods of reaping with hooks and wind assisted winnowing (Gillespie 1991a).

Thomas was a lover of horses and bred race horses and Clydesdale draught horses. He entered race horses in local and Sydney events, winning many prizes, and also held race meetings on his own property (Gillespie 1991a).

In 1873 Thomas Gribble was elected to the board of the inaugural Ginninderra Public School and in the 1880s to the committee of the Ginninderra Free Selectors Association in the 1880s. This organisation's main purpose was "to exercise vigilance in the interests of the locality, particularly in matters such as the surveying of roads and reserves" (Gillespie 1992:111). When the Association wound up its affairs in 1886 following waning interest, the surplus funds were handed to Thomas Gribble to meet his legal costs in a court action arising from the closure of a road by Edward Crace of Gungahlin.

Thomas Gribble was a member of the Ginninderra Farmer's Union, which held lectures on agricultural topics, organised sporting events, agricultural shows and contributed greatly to the social cohesion of the area, including the erection of a hall at Ginninderra (Gillespie 1992; 155, 158). In 1913 Thomas Gribble was honoured with Life membership in recognition of his contributions.

The Gribble family became famous for their hospitality and avid competition in the sporting events of the area. Thomas played in the First XI of the Ginninderra Cricket Club, was elected a member of the Coursing Club at the Cricketer's Arms Hotel and was on the committee which organised the annual ploughing contests as well as featuring strongly in their competitions (Gillespie 1991a).

School children used to run to the fence to watch the Gribble steam threshing machine as it sped along at 4 mph between farms, operated by three generations of the family. Thomas Gribble, the third to bear the name, was still a contract shearer in 1991 at the age of 83. He represented the ACT in rugby and cricket and put on shearing demonstrations for tourists at Gold Creek on weekends, continuing the legacy of hard work and regional pride started by his grandfather into the 1990s.

"The Valley" was lived in continually from 1887 until 1964. Thomas Gribble retired in 1912 and his sons George and Thomas took over the property, leasing out the house. As well as farming, they operated a butchering business for which a slaughtering license had been granted in 1892 (Gillespie 1991a).

William (Billy) Moore bought The Valley from the Craces and his family were living in there in 1917 when their daughter Jane married James Southwell. The Moore's lived in The Valley until the 1940s when Billy Moore sold it to the Cavanaghs after his wife Dolly died; he was broken hearted when she died and lost interest in the farm.

The Federal Government appropriated freehold land within its boundaries in 1916 and the Commonwealth leased the land back to Ernest Cavanagh, whose son John was the last lessee before the land was vacated for the development of the new town of Gungahlin.

In 1925 the Commonwealth joined the pisé room to the stone house by constructing a weatherboard kitchen area between them. A slab timber kitchen measuring about 7 m x 4 m stood at the rear of the pisé room, probably the original homestead, which was later used as a shed and garage.

One of the last residents of "The Valley" was Patrick Anderson, an artist who had acted in vaudeville during the 1930s Depression. He used the pisé living room as a studio, taking the floor boards to repair the floors of the stone house, leaving the floor of the pisé room with a stamped earth floor.

There was no electricity connected to the house at this time; meat was kept in a meat safe hanging in a pine tree and kerosene was used in lamps and a refrigerator.

The last residents of the house from 1952 to March 1954 were Stanley and Mary [Mollie] Jones, emigrants from UK, with their daughters Judith, Geraldine and Denise who was born in June 1953 when the family were living at 'The Valley'.

Although not of outstanding architectural merit, houses such as "The Valley" provide examples of the Australian tradition of "making do". The house, outbuildings and associated cultivated and grazed paddocks around this site represent an opportunity to study and interpret the early agricultural practices of the smaller landholders of the ACT. Few sites with this potential remain in the region since the development of Gungahlin. It is important that this site is thoroughly investigated for the information it can provide on this early lifestyle. The site is on the ACT Heritage Places Register and two conservation and management plans have been commissioned and the recommendations ignored. Conservation of this evocative site is urgently required.

REFERENCES:

• Canberra Archaeological Society 1988 Plans of "The Valley", Brian Egloff.
• Canberra Archaeological Society 1991 "Return to the Valley", report on fieldwork at Thomas Gribble's house, Gungahlin, Helen Cooke.
• Canberra and District Historical Society 1976a Mulligan's Flat Excursion background notes. W F Thompson.
• Canberra and District Historical Society 1976b Newsletter no 175. D E Ricketts.
• Gillespie L L 1991a Access to files
• Gillespie L L 1991b Canberra 1820 - 1913. Canberra, AGPS
• Gillespie L L 1992 Ginninderra, Forerunner to Canberra, The Wizard, Canberra Local History Series, Canberra.
• Polhuis, Bill 1991 Engineer with Kinhill Pty Ltd. He was a friend of Patrick Anderson's son Brian.
• Queanbeyan Age 1912 23 August.
• Photo of 'The Valley' Helen Cooke 1991
• Photo of Jones family Denise Moule