page_title: Gwambygine Homestead
section_title: The building
hierarchical_section_title: Gwambygine Homestead / The building
caption_attribution_description: English: Gwambygine Pool, Avon River, Western Australia
context_page_description: Gwambygine Homestead is one of the earliest colonial buildings still remaining in Western Australia. Until the death in 1998 of the last occupant, Merton Clifton, the house had the reputation of being the oldest continually occupied house in the state.
context_section_description: Historically, Gwambygine Homestead is linked inextricably to the permanent Pool, Gwambygine Pool, in the Avon River that runs past the property at the eastern side of the Homestead. The Homestead is a typical Colonial rural farmhouse ; single-depth rooms accessible from verandas along both sides. The verandas provided shelter and protection, and a means of access to the rooms that formed the amenity of the homestead, sitting room, bedrooms, kitchen, storerooms, farm office, and so on. Gwambygine, with its high-pitched roof and shady verandas, conforms to the early pattern for rural Western Australian houses. It also shows the extensions carried out to provide additional accommodation for increased family needs and improved amenity over the life of the building.
  As a building dating from 1836, the fabric reflects the means by which early buildings were constructed; mud walling from clay dug on the property plus sand and fermented straw, rough hewn timber roof framing cut on the property and supporting the original grasstree roof covering, later to be replaced with timber shingles, and later in the 19th century, when corrugated iron became available, with corrugated iron sheeting over the shingles for weatherproofing. Bricks made by convict labourers, who also built the stone barn, were used later to build chimneys and repair walls. Fireplaces provided heating in the rooms, and most survive today. In the 20th century concrete replaced the original timber-boarded floors that were laid onto the ground. These concrete floors exacerbated the rising damp that destroys the lowest section of the pug walling.
  In 2010, the Gwambygine property is identified as Lot 36, No. 5561 Southern Highway, comprising 36.77 hectares (90.86 acres) incorporating Gwambygine Homestead, in the ownership of Margaret (Maggie) Venerys, the daughter of Brian Merton Clifton.
  Former elements of Gwambygine Farm that have not survived the vicissitudes of time and decay due to flooding and earthquake, are the large shed north of the Homestead, the timber-framed building and the air raid shelter between the Homestead and the Pool, the duck yards, parts of the orchard which included olives, pears, figs and pomegranates, the vegetable garden and the jetty into the Pool. The sheep pens and pigsty were removed during the restoration when found to be full of white ant. The tennis court paved in rammed anthill, hard against the western side of the Homestead, is now open space but no longer suitable for tennis. Some former building onto the north side of the barn has also disappeared.
  Other significant places associated with Gwambygine Farm and the Homestead is the nearby Hicks Siding on the railway, Hicks Siding School (Gwambygine School) and District Hall, all of which are now only historic sites. The Clifton family's Cave Hill House opposite Gwambygine Homestead to the west and Millbrook to the southwest, survive as early 19th century elements in the rural and social life of the locality.
  Cave Hill, Gwambygine Hill and Sugarloaf Hill on the western side of the Great Southern Highway remain as identifiable natural features that played an important role in the life of the Gwambygine community. Blackjack dam, an important water source for the Gwambygine Estate; the many waterholes, the quarry and the caves at Cave Hill, were elements that featured strongly in the farming community and remain today as relevant historic sites associated in particular with the various owners of Gwambygine Estate.
caption: Gwambygine Pool on the Avon River
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