Turner Cottage, Serpentine, to be given heritage listing

19/12/96

The State Government has moved to protect the heritage values of one of the pioneering buildings of the Serpentine region.

Historic Turner Cottage, built in about 1855, is to be placed on the Heritage Council of Western Australia's interim register of heritage places.

Heritage Minister Richard Lewis said Turner Cottage, originally known as Bridge Farm, had important historic and aesthetic qualities.

"The cottage is nestled alongside the South West Highway among a number of other heritage buildings," Mr Lewis said.

"It operates as as a museum and tourist facility and has the potential to form part of a significant heritage conservation area."

The Minister said ticket-of-leave man James Brown was the first to settle the Serpentine River property and the first cottage on the site is believed to have been thatched in grass.

Edward Turner and his wife Elizabeth moved on to the property in the mid-1850s.

In 1866, Turner was postmaster at Serpentine and grew wheat, fruit, fodder and produced milk and butter. Edward died in 1873 at the age of 41.

His widow continued on the farm on a subsistence basis and it was used as a changing station for the mail coach. The family continued to operate the postal service.

"The Serpentine Bridge hamlet was well placed for trade from the passing coaches until the railway line was connected to Bunbury in 1893," Mr Lewis said.

"The building is an important reminder of the beginnings of the postal and road transport service in rural WA.

"It is also significant as a demonstration of the type of subsistence farming that took place in Serpentine in that era."

Mr Lewis said Elizabeth Turner died in 1902 and the property passed to her son Harry, who struggled on with farming until he died in 1945. It was left to his son Claude, who lived and worked elsewhere and leased out the property.

The cottage fell into disrepair and at one stage was condemned by the local shire.

Reconstruction began in 1978 and the work was completed in 1980 and opened as a tourist facility.

A single-storey brick and shingle farmhouse, Turner Cottage was built of on-site materials such as mud brick, sawn timbers and split shingles.

The walls are single leaf clay brick bonded with river mud outside and painted with lime.

Mr Lewis said Turner Cottage was a reminder of the hardship endured by a pioneering family of the Serpentine area.

"With its current use as a museum and tourism facility, the cottage is a major starting point for possible community involvement in a wider conservation area," he said.

"It is a significant local heritage building and deserves the protection of the State's heritage laws."

Media contact : Bronwyn Hillman 222 9595, 221 1377