Pondering the fact that Mum’s side of the family had strong links to the Sunbury area in Victoria, I wondered if the original WINTER farm as detailed in my last blog post How I ‘met’ my great-grandfather William WINTER. Part 1. was anywhere near the Sunbury pop festivals of the 1970s. I did a bit of googling and the results were surprising…
According to Wikipedia, the annual festivals (1972-1975 inclusive)—Victoria’s version of Woodstock—were held on ‘George Duncan’s farm, Diggers Rest’:
The four Sunbury Pop Festivals were held on the same 620-acre (2.5 km2) private farm along Jacksons Creek, 3.5 km south of Sunbury and 2 km north-east of Diggers Rest.[3] The property was owned by 50-year-old farmer and local identity George Duncan who offered the use of his land at no cost to the organisers. The property was known locally as “Duncan’s farm”… The entrance gates to the Sunbury Pop Festival were off Watsons Road, Diggers Rest. Promoters rejected the name of Diggers Rest ’72 in favour of Sunbury ’72 as being more suggestive of a good time and sunny destination. (Jenkins, Jeff; Meldrum, Ian (2007). “Festivals”. Molly Meldrum Presents 50 Years of Rock in Australia. Melbourne: Wilkinson Publishing. pp. 245–251).
The festival venue was closer to the smaller township of Diggers Rest, so many attendees who travelled by train alighted at Diggers Rest railway station, and not Sunbury.
‘off Watson’s Road, Diggers Rest’. This was intriguing. Watson’s Road, Diggers Rest was the southern boundary of my great great grandfather, Edward WINTER’s, farm.
I turned to Google Earth to compare the topography.
A wonderful attribute of Google Earth is that you can overlay an old Parish map onto an aerial view of the land as it is today. By lining up the main landmarks, such as water courses, you can see where the parcel of land in question is in comparison to the current features.
I made an overlay of the Parish map of Holden outlining the original survey of allotments, as accessed through the State Library catalogue, onto the aerial view of the Sunbury/Diggers Rest area as it is today .
After lining up Jackson Creek and the Calder Freeway dissecting Diggers Rest I could see how Edward WINTER’s farm lined up with the land.
This is the result:
Edward WINTER’s farm, within the black circle (Section 17 allotments C and D), is not quite down to Jackson Creek but no doubt some of the Festival revellers would have walked or driven down Watson’s Road, the southern boundary of the farm, to get to the entrance of the festival. I don’t know exactly where George Duncan’s farm was but I suspect it was next to the WINTER farm, to the east, running along Jackson Creek, but for all I know Duncan’s farm may have incorporated the WINTER farm, or part of it.
The YouTube video Arriving at Sunbury Rock Festival 1970s gives you a feel for the general landscape-dry and rocky-as well as some amusing interviews by ‘Molly’ Meldrum with the revellers.
The farm was owned by the WINTERs from 1854 to about 1870 so we’re talking about a more than 100 year gap between the WINTER clan working the land and Billy Thorpe belting out Oop poo pa doo down the road. Not quite the singalong ’round the piano of Edward WINTER’s day.
My brother went to a couple of the Sunbury Festivals much to my mother’s horror. Little did she know, or he know, or any of my relatives know, that the festivals were so close to our forebears’ farm. An interesting little aside….
ADDIT I’ll return to Part 2 of the William WINTER story eventually…
Interesting to read how you source your information like overlaying a parish map over Google earth. The Sunbury YouTube clip was useful to see the countryside as well as go down memory lane with the hairdos etc. I wonder what the relatives would have thought of it all!
Shocked I’m sure! Imagine a concert like that in your backyard. It is great to see the fashions and I think we used to talk differently?!?
Love your work, I have a FB group on the history of Sunbury & surrounds and often the name Winter pops up associated with the local watering holes. Your article about the foot race won by W.T.R. Winter was terrific. I have shared with my readers. Naturally the Pop Festival also pops up and you may be interested to know that there is also a FB group of the festival. Now I am on the search for a WINTER cordial bottle 🙂
Thanks so much for commenting on the blog Dave. I have a burning fascination for how my forebears lived which drives this blog. ‘Ma Williams’, as she was known, nee MILLETT, WTR’s mother, had the Royal Hotel in Sunbury. WTR’s sisters, Susan WINTER and Irene HILTON took it over after their mother’s death. WTR seemed more like the adventuring type and tried a number of things, and yes, cordial was one. A member of the family found a bottle in Elmore years ago. WTR’s son, Bill WINTER had his own soft drink factory in Geelong, ‘Noddy’s soft drinks’ in the 1960s/70s.
I’ll definitely have a good look at your FB page. Thanks for the info.
Cheers, Marg.
MY POST ON THE “WE REMEMBER TULLAMARINE AND MILES AROUND IN THE EARLY DAYS” FACEBOOK PAGE.
EDWARD WINTER.
I was trying to find the origin of the name of Winters Flat at Castlemaine and stumbled upon a blog written by Marg., a descendant of Edward Winter, which I’d read some years ago.https://cicadasbeesandbargepoles.com/sunbury-festivals…/
Isaac Batey, who (mainly after his wife’s early death) probably contributed more history of the very early pioneers of Sunbury and miles around (including Tullamarine) than anybody else, married Edward’s daughter.
WINTER Lydia, Birth
mother: Honora nee UNKNOWN, father: WINTER Edward
place of birth: THE SPRINGS,1843, 13530/1843
(The Springs was an early name for the Foster land north of Sharps Rd and south to Keilor Road.)
BATEY Isaac, Marriage, WINTER, Lydia, 1877, 173/1877
BATEY Lydia, Death
mother: Honora TANCRED, father: Winter Edw
place of death: Woodend, 55, 1899, 11675/1899
Lydia told Isaac that she’d attended Mr Trimmer’s school at Tullamarine which was behind the Beech Tree Hotel.
Here’s an amusing story about Edward which Marg. probably hasn’t seen.
SPORTING EXTRAORDINARY. — Edward Winter was on Monday charged at the District Police Court with shooting a pig, the property of Benjamin Hindell. Both parties reside in Keilor, and from the statements of witnesses for the complainant it appeared that the condition of Keilor, viewed with reference to pigs, is of a very unsatisfactory description. A large herd of these determined quadrupeds, upwards of fifty in number, were said to have banded themselves together for predatory purposes, and to scorn all human control. One of the witnesses indeed amused the Court not a little, by describing a chase which he had recently been the subject of from these lawless animals. It appeared that the specific pig which was involved in this present inquiry, had trespassed on the defendant’s land, and was in the very act of devouring some of his potatoes when the defendant shot it. He, furthermore, shortly afterwards admitted to the complainant that he had killed the animal. The Bench being of opinion that the defendant had received great provocation in the destruction of his potatoes, inflicted the mitigated penalty of 40s. with 14s. 6d. costs.
(P.5, The Age, 1-2-1855.)https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/154852726
In the blog whose link is given at the start of this post, Marg showed the location of Edward’s farm in the parish of Holden, near the site of the Sunbury Pops Festival. I wonder if Edward had been on the way to Winter’s Flat when he first saw this land and paid such an outrageously high price for it with the proceeds from the sale of a nugget he’d tripped over there, (I found no hint of the origin of the Castlemaine suburb’s name!)
GOVERNMENT LAND SALE ON 9-6-1854.
The highest price given was ÂŁ7 6s.per acre, given by Edward Winter for 152 acres at Holden.https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/91931833
Thanks for your input Ray. Always interesting.
Yes. I had read about the ‘pig incident’. Very amusing. Good to know feral pigs have been eradicated from present day Keilor!
Also interesting is the fact that 7 acres of Edward Winter’s farm was acquired to enable the railway to go right through his property. It’s mentioned in the auction notice of his farm in 1871 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/203015531?searchTerm=agricultural
listed in the first column. Hopefully he was duly recompensed for that.
Cheers, Marg