A BLUESTONE EXCLUSIVE:

Words by Carol Altmann

The owner of the former Fletcher Jones factory in Warrnambool, Dean Montgomery, is expected to be announced shortly as the new owner of the former Glenormiston Agricultural College.

Bluestone Magazine has learned that Mr Montgomery is the frontrunner to take over the 300ha college site and historic Glenormiston Homestead, near Terang, which has been vacant for two years following the departure of TAFE.

The site has since been under caretaker control of the State Government, which earlier this year launched an Expression of Interest process to try and find a new owner.

Previous attempts by the former Coalition Government to secure a new tenant fell over in 2014 and it was also unable to find a buyer for the site.

The Andrews Labor Government, however, is expected to announce shortly that Mr Montgomery, who is based in China, is the successful buyer following an extensive negotiation process. Mr Montgomery could not be reached for comment.

Bluestone has been told that the sale is expected to include the multi-million dollar wooden staircase carved by colonial woodcarver and cabinet maker Robert Prenzel for the original owners of the homestead, the Black family, in 1909.

Wealthy pastoralist Niel Black built the five-bedroom mansion in 1847 and the Black family owned the property until 1949 when it sold it to the State Government for use as an agricultural college, although Glenormiston Agriculture College did not start until 22 years later.

The 35 Prenzel wooden panels along the staircase had been the subject of some dispute over just who owned them, having been removed by the Black family and donated to Melbourne University, which later returned them to the property and included them in the transfer to TAFE in 2005.

The homestead is considered of architectural and historical significance to Victoria because of its design, but also its reflection of how south-west Victoria was colonised.

Heritage Victoria makes the point that, prior to Niel Black arriving at the site, it was the scene of an aboriginal massacre and “as on many other Western District estates, violence towards aborigines was used to consolidate the property”.

“Glenormiston’s origins, thus, are intimately bound up with the violence that accompanied the early expansion of the Western District frontier in the 19th century,” its Victorian Heritage Database listing says.

The expected purchase of Glenormiston College is one of several prominent property purchases by Mr Montgomery in the recent years.

The Geelong-born businessman bought the former Fletcher Jones site in Warrnambool in 2014 with a view to establishing the Warrnambool Motor Museum that is now under construction. He has also purchased the T&G building in Geelong, the Leura Hotel in Camperdown and the historic Motang homestead on Hopkins Point Road, Warrnambool.

At this point we can’t confirm what the Glenormiston College site will be used for under Mr Montgomery’s ownership, although the State Government had stipulated in the EOI process that at least part of it continue to be used for education and training.

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[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] H [/dropcap]aving changed the future of one Warrnambool landmark with his purchase of the former Fletcher Jones factory, Hong Kong-based businessman Dean Montgomery has bought another significant property.

Bluestone has learnt that Mr Montgomery is the new owner of the 140-year-old ‘Motang’ stone house and surrounding 58-acres that occupies a slice of prime land between the beach and Hopkins Point Road, at the eastern entrance to Warrnambool.

The homestead dates back to the 1870s and was originally owned by the pioneering Thomas Manifold, who in the 1850s bought several hundred acres that made up the ‘Motang’ estate on both sides of Hopkins Point Road.

According to historians Helen Doyle, Louise Honman and Richard Aitken*, Thomas and his wife, Jane Manifold, may have used the property as a summer retreat, but the house itself was most likely built by a sharefarmer tenant at the Manifold’s expense, as was a common arrangement at the time.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] S [/dropcap]ir Walter Synnot Manifold, the son of Thomas, inherited the property after the death of his parents, but apparently never lived there.

He instead resided in the family home at Wollaston, from where he maintained his busy life as a state politician representing the Western Province in the Legislative Council. Like Sir Fletcher Jones, Sir Walter was a man of the people and well-respected for his inclusive approach to business.

Sir Walter, who died in 1928, put the entire ‘Motang’ estate up for auction in 1906 at a reserve of £40 an acre. It was passed in, but sold shortly after to John Wilson Younger, from Younger’s store fame in Warrnambool, who was also a former mayor.

The property has since been progressively divided up and held by different owners over the years, with farming brothers Edward and William Tomlinson among those to own the portion that included the eight-room homestead and outbuildings.

They auctioned off 100 acres in 1934 to the Ryan family, when the asking price for the “marine frontage” was £1 an acre! The Ryan family later used the property to raise racehorses.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] M [/dropcap]r Montgomery could not be contacted for comment, but it is understood he intends to retain and restore as much of the original homestead and outbuildings as possible.

The white-washed homestead is derelict and, like the Fletcher Jones building, has suffered at the hands of squatters, but still retains much of its character.

Historians suggest it was modelled on Scottish/Irish farmhouses of the time, and built from stone quarried on the land.

A sandstone wall is just about all that remains of the original barn, but it also still captures the building techniques of the period.

As it happens, another significant chunk of the Manifold’s original ‘Motang’ property is for sale across the road from Mr Montgomery’s purchase.

That 70-hectare property is owned by the family of the late Dan Madden, a Warrnambool solicitor, and – unlike the homestead portion – falls within the town boundary for subdivision.

The asking price is believed to be around $20 million: a little more, to say the least, than the £40 per acre that Sir Walter was asking for…

[box]*Helen Doyle, Louise Honman and Richard Aitken, ‘Warrnambool Heritage: A report on selected sites in Allansford, Bushfield, Farnham and Woodford’, prepared for Warrnambool City Council, November 2001.[/box]

Bluestone Magazine would like to thank historian Dr Helen Doyle (Context) and Steve Myers (Warrnambool City Council) for their invaluable help in retrieving a copy of the above report which provided the historical information for this story.

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