Plenty Road: its early days

Plenty Road is one of Victoria’s oldest, starting—as far as Bundoora, and northward is concerned—in 1838, when Robert Hoddle, as part of the process of laying out the Parishes of Keelbundora, Morang, Yan Yean and Toorourrong, allowed an easement for a Government Road. In the early days the Southern end of Upper Plenty Road (or the Road to the Upper Plenty) as Plenty Road was called; started at the intersection where today’s Queens Parade meets Heidelberg Road (the first road constructed outside Melbourne). In later years, the name of that part of Upper Plenty Road running between the Merri Creek Bridge and the Junction Hotel, Preston, was changed to High Street.

In 1843, when Alexander Hunter travelled from today’s Whittlesea to Melbourne, the Upper Plenty Road was little more than a mark on the map. His impression, though brief, is interesting: ‘Rode into town this morning, up to my hocks all the way, never saw such a road .’ [‘Hocks’ would refer to the fetlocks of his horse] In 1852, William Howitt, the author of the book Land Labour and Gold, found himself, and his companions struggling along the same road on their way to the Ovens goldfields. We join them, in the Bundoora area:

"28 October, 1852. This days journey was the most terrible that we had yet had. No sooner were we out of a bog than we were bouncing over these round great stones, which hard as iron protruded from the earth as thick as plums in a pudding. [For] mile after mile we bumped along over these horrible stones, two of us holding each a horse and the other driving."

And at another place:

"We soon found ourselves involved in bogs and swamps. All traces of the road disappeared …but onward we pushed, now plunging through deep bogs, our carts up to their axles, and now bounding and reeling over volcanic boulders, or bluestones, as the people call them, till our carts jarred again and threatened to smash to pieces."

1 Barber’s Creek
2 Roads Inspector
3 References
4 Links

[edit] Barber’s Creek

The next day their trials continued as they reached Yan Yean, and another considerable obstacle:

"At Barbers Creek, which in England would be called a brook …we had to cross such a place as at home would have been pronounced impossible. The water lay deep down between two banks of several yards in depth. The horses had to plunge down precipitously into the water, and then drag the load up an almost perpendicular wall. We put our horses all together, and drove through, luckily without sticking fast, as carts and bullocks often do."

Locals would have to suffer the difficulty caused by the Barbers Creek until 1857, when a contract, valued at £257, was issued to the contractors, Arbut and Brown, ‘for constructing a bridge and approaches to Barbers Creek.’ This work took from 12 October 1857; when the contract was signed; to 16 January 1858, when the final payment was made . For a number of years, from 1853, responsibility for constructing and maintaining roads throughout the Colony of Victoria came under the authority of the Central Road Board. Its main concern was to make and maintain the roads that led to the goldfields, because gold was needed to build-up the coffers of the Colony’s Treasury; therefore, Plenty Road had a low priority. However in 1854 the Commission of Sewerage and Water Supply, having commenced construction of the Yan Yean Reservoir, and needing to lay its pipes between there and Melbourne, started to put pressure on the Board to construct Plenty Road. Unfortunately this would have required a greater drain on Board resources than its allocation could bear.

Charles Griffith, President of the Sewerage and Water Supply Commission could clearly see that Murphy’s hands were tied, but he was desperate and wrote to Lieutenant Governor Hotham, via the Colonial Secretary, asking that an amount be placed on the supplementary estimates to build a bridge to carry Plenty Road over the Darebin Creek. He explained his request in the following terms:

The necessity of this work arises from this—we have received advices that shipments will be made of large iron water pipes to arrive about October, and from [then] at the rate of 1,000 tons per month. About seven hundred tons of these pipes will have to be conveyed to the Upper part of the line connecting the Yan Yean Reservoir with Melbourne, and the most direct line of road is that called the Upper Plenty road leading over the Darebin Creek at the point indicated. That place is now impassable, as far as the carriage of these pipes is concerned; as owing to the large rocks and boulder stones over which they would have to be conveyed, there would be the imminent risk of breakage. The urgency of the case arises from this: that if the building of the bridge is deferred, so as not to be available during the summer months the price of cartage would be augmented at the least by £3 a ton owing to the bad state of the Upper Plenty road which is only possible in summer and this increased charge would amount to about £20,000 .

It was by this unusual circumstance that the old stone ford over the Darebin Creek was no longer needed and the neglected settlers of the Plenty Valley received a valuable improvement in their communications with the Melbourne Markets. As for the Sewerage and Water Commission, the Colonial Treasury was unable to bear the cost of the Darebin Creek Bridge, and despite protests from Griffith, when told in 1855, the Commission was forced to finance the work through the sale of debentures.

On 29 September 1854, Central Road Board President, Francis Murphy, wrote to the President of the Commission, Charles Griffith, stating that the funds expected from the Government for 1855, would allow only £6,000 for Plenty Road. He continued:

"As this sum is altogether insufficient for the purpose of putting that road into such a state as would enable the Commissioners of Sewers and Water Supply to convey their water pipes in safety to Yan Yean it would be of great advantage if any portion of their funds could be made available in aid".

The Commission needed more to be done, so Griffith wrote with a request that trees be cleared from the roadway! Murphy was again in touch on 25 October 1854: I …acknowledge receipt of your [letter] [requesting] that the portion of the Upper Plenty Road between Cooper’s gate and the Plough Inn [adjacent to the west side of Plenty road, Mill Park], may be cleared of timber. …The funds at the disposal of the Central Road Board will not admit of their undertaking any further works than those already contracted for and in progress, but they will be glad to commence new work if supplied with funds .

According to J.W Payne’s book, "The Plenty" , Horatio Cooper’s homestead stood 100 yards south of Norris Bank Primary School, Bundoora. The Commission wrote back on 2 November 1854. To avoid delays in laying the pipes to Melbourne, it asked to be allowed to take over responsibility for parts of Plenty Road. As a first step, it sought authority to construct the road from Cooper’s gate to about three quarters of a mile beyond the Plough Inn. The Road Board was happy enough to be relieved of the problem . The experience of constructing its first mile of road—even before it became aware of its financial responsibility for the cost of the bridge—seems to have forced the Commission into a change of heart—and policy—so that it decided to call tenders for the construction of its own horse drawn, private tramway, along its existing pipe track reserve, from its works depot at the Carlton Gardens to the Yan Yean Reservoir.

Moving forward to 1859, Herald reporter Edmund Finn made the journey out from Melbourne in a horse drawn vehicle. His adventures are reflected in his report:

"The Upper Plenty Road …is a tolerably good one for about fourteen miles from Melbourne, when the traveller commences his misfortunes in right earnest, and he who can steer a horse and vehicle unbogged in black muck, or unwrecked by boulders, through the muddy quicksands near the Morang pound [just south of Gordons Road, where, still today, it takes a natural dip], must have a sharp eye and steady hand. Further on, at intervals, the road, if not worse, is as bad".

Yet, with ‘several gangs at work,’ on improvements, our man felt confident that in a year or two there would be a ‘first-rate thoroughfare for about thirty miles’.

Nevertheless, such sentiments of satisfaction may not have been echoed by the locals. According to Finn, this road, along with many others around Colonial Victoria, was:

"known by the unclassical but homely name of “glue pot,” viz., a large chasm extending across the roadway, filled with a sort of creamy mud, the depth of which no heaving of the lead could sound, but of such an affectionate consistency, that man or beast once got in, it was an exceedingly difficult job to get Mr Glue pot to part with them upon easy terms . "

The report goes on to relate a story that was told to him in relation to those repairs:

"When probing it for the purpose of filling it up, the carcasses of two bullocks were found embedded in the mud, and on a government official expressing his surprise at what he saw, he was coolly informed that by sinking a little deeper another yoke would be discovered, as it was nothing unusual for half-a-dozen bullocks to find a last home in such places. "

[edit] Roads Inspector

This story might be seen as an exaggeration, but the following letter from Roads Inspector, G.N. Harris, to Road Engineer, J.W. Crawley, not only offers it some credence, but offers a mirror reflection of the sufferings of all who travelled that way. In the letter, dated 20 June 1853, six years earlier than Finn’s visit, Harris drew the engineers attention to ‘a place on the Plenty Road about 2 miles beyond Cavener’s Inn, [Moses Kavanagh’s Plough Inn, at Janefield] which is said to be dangerous in the extreme, in fact deep enough to bury a horse .’ The section of road was 21 feet wide and about 180 yards long and the contractor, James Hall, needed from 6 July to 16 August to bring it into an acceptable state of repair .

We are enlightened about the general policy of the Board, as far as Plenty Road was concerned, in a letter written by Inspector of Roads, F. Rutland, to Road Engineer, James MacGregor, dated 6 January 1854. This was the same time as construction was starting on the Yan Yean Reservoir, and just before the Central Road Board came under pressure from the Commissioners of Sewerage and Water Supply to carry out work that had not been funded in their budget. Specifically referring to Plenty Road, the letter stated that work:

"...should be gradually extended from town and then continuously, as the population increases, except where there are impassable places requiring to be made good, and where this can be done without loss of funds, you are requested to be good enough, after having consulted with the local committee to forward a statement and estimate of the works proposed."

In other words the Central Road Board felt no sense of urgency about improving Plenty Road, but emergency repairs could be undertaken at the request, and with funding from, of the local committee.

[edit] References

1. “Plan of the Township of Northcote on the Merri Merri Creek, in the Parish of Jika Jika.” Photo lithographed, at Depart. of Land and Survey, Melb., March 17 1871. Latrobe Library Map Collection.

2. Payne J.W. The Plenty, a Centenary History of the Shire of Whittlesea, © The Shire of Whittlesea, 1975, p. 20. (Quoted from the Diary of Alexander McLean Hunter, Latrobe Library.

3. Ibid. As quoted by Payne from Howitt, William, Land Labour and Gold, reprint, Lowden Publishing Co. Kilmore 1972 (page number not stated).

4. Edwards, Dianne H., Yan Yean: a History, ©Yan Yean School Council, 1978, p.p. 48-49.

5. Ibid., p. 49.

6. PROV VPRS 961; unit 36; File: Roads and Bridges Vouchers of Expenditure on the Upper Plenty Road, Item No.: 319; Contract No.: 672.

7. PROV VPRS 1189, Box 215; File No H54/8861 Letter dated 14 August 1854, from the Charles Griffith, President of the Sewerage and Water Supply Commission to the Colonial Secretary, asking that Lieutenant Governor Hotham to place the required sum on a ‘the supplementary estimates.

8. PROV VPRS 1122; Unit No.: 3; File: Outward Registered Correspondence 1853 1857 Page 279: letter no. S599, dated 29 September 1854, from Francis Murphy President of The Central Road Board, to the President of the Sewerage and Water Board.

9. PROV VPRS 1122; Unit No.: 3; File: Outward Registered Correspondence 1853 1857; Page 307: letter no. S659, dated 25 October 1854, from Francis Murphy President of the Central Road Board, to the President of the Sewerage and Water Board.

11. PROV VPRS 1122; Unit No.: 5; File: Outward Registered Correspondence 1853 1857; Item: letter no. S670, dated 2 November 1854, from Francis Murphy President of The Central Road Board, to the Colonial Secretary.

12. Melbourne Herald, 1 June 1859. Please note: Finn wrote under the pseudonym, ‘Garryowen’.

13. ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. PROV VPRS 1125/U; Unit 1, page 60; Item: Letter No. 20.

16. PROV VPRS 961; Unit 36; Item no. 20: Voucher of Expenditure

17. PROV VPRS 1125/U Unit 2; Letter no. 20; Folio 6; 6 January 1854; F. Rutland to J. MacGregor.