Ludlow is a locality in the South West region of Western Australia near the Tuart Forest National Park. It is in the

local government areas A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a state, province, division, or territory. The ph ...

of the

City of Busselton The City of Busselton is a local government area in the South West region of Western Australia, approximately south of Perth, the state capital. The city covers an area of and had a population of 40,640 as at the 2021 Census. It contains two ...

and the

Shire of Capel The Shire of Capel is a local government area in the South West region of Western Australia, taking in the land between the cities of Bunbury and Busselton about south of the state capital, Perth. The Shire covers an area of , and its seat of ...

. At the 2021 census, the area had a population of 132.

History

The

Wardandi The Wadandi, also spelt Wardandi and other variants, are an Aboriginal people of south-western Western Australia, one of fourteen language groups of the Noongar peoples. Name There are at least three theories about the meaning of the tribal et ...

people inhabited the Ludlow area before European settlement. A school, Ludlow School (originally known as Ludlow Bridge School), existed in the area as early as 1866, but initially operated intermittently due to low patronage. A pine plantation was first set up at Ludlow in 1909,with a nursery being developed in 1916. After the passage of the ''Forestry Act'' (1918), Conservator of Forests

Charles Lane Poole Charles Edward Lane Poole (16 August 1885 – 22 November 1970) was an English Australian forester who introduced systematic, science-based forestry practices to various parts of the Commonwealth, most notably Australia. Biography Early life a ...

set up a small forestry settlement in the area, along with the Ludlow Forestry School, the first such institution in Western Australia, which operated from 1921 to 1927. During the 1920s the area was also part of the

Group Settlement Scheme The Group Settlement Scheme was an assisted migration scheme which operated in Western Australia from the early 1920s. It was engineered by Premier James Mitchell and followed on from the Soldier Settlement Scheme immediately after World W ...

for dairy production, and a general store and district office were built, as well as a new school building for children in the Ludlow area. The first

thinning In agricultural sciences, thinning is the removal of some plants, or parts of plants, to make room for the growth of others. Selective removal of parts of a plant such as branches, buds, or roots is typically known as '' pruning''. In forestry ...

s were harvested from the pine plantation in 1936/37 and by the early 1940s timber from Ludlow was being used to make cases and crates for food storage during World War II. During the post-war housing boom, Ludlow was used to supply

plywood Plywood is a composite material manufactured from thin layers, or "plies", of wood veneer that have been stacked and glued together. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards, which include plywood, medium-density fibreboa ...

for the housing industry. European immigrants (" New Australians") began working in the Ludlow pine plantation and by the mid-1950s a sawmill and planer mill, along with workers' cottages that formed the main Ludlow forestry settlement, had been constructed. The settlement was divided by the Ludlow River; the north side, where most of the cottages were built, is in the area of the

. By the early 1970s the sawmill had been closed and plantings were discontinued in the pine plantation in 1973; the planer mill was closed a few years later. The Tuart Forest National Park was declared in the area in 1987 and The Ludlow Forestry Mill and Settlement was registered on the

State Register of Heritage Places The State Register of Heritage Places is the heritage register of historic sites in Western Australia deemed significant at the state level by the Heritage Council of Western Australia. History In the 1970s, following its establishment of the N ...

in 2006. In 2016 the

Department of Parks and Wildlife The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) was the department of the Government of Western Australia responsible for managing lands described in the ''Conservation and Land Management Act 1984'' and implementing the state's conservation and en ...

, which rented out the cottages, evicted the occupants, citing maintenance issues, age, and housing conditions; the cottages have since been abandoned. In 2021, the volunteer Ludlow Tuart Forest Restoration Group released a masterplan for a future forest education, research and tourist centre at the Ludlow forestry settlement.

References

{{authority control Timber towns in Western Australia Shire of Capel State Register of Heritage Places in the Shire of Capel State Register of Heritage Places in the City of Busselton City of Busselton