The Briars is a former
homestead
Homestead may refer to:
*Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses
* Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres
*Homestead principle, a legal concept t ...
in
Mount Martha,
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
, Australia, now managed by the
Mornington Peninsula Shire
The Shire of Mornington Peninsula is a local government area in southeastern Metropolitan Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is located to the south of the Melbourne City Centre. It has an area of 724 square kilometres and in June 2018 it had a ...
as a
conservation park. The property was originally established in 1840 by Alexander and Emma Balcombe with a pastoral licence, later reduced to . Partially used for wine production, it was then handed down through generations of the same family until in 1976, the property was transferred to the
National Trust of Australia and the Shire.
The site now consists of the homestead, gardens, a wildlife sanctuary, a public nursery, a public park and other private facilities such as an outdoor education camp.
History
Alexander Balcombe was born at a property known as
The Briars on the island of St Helena in 1811.
In 1815, it served as the temporary home of the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte. His father, William, became the first Treasurer of the
Colony of New South Wales in April 1824, purchasing a 4000 acre property by the
Molonglo River
The Molonglo River, a perennial river that is part of the Murrumbidgee catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, is located in the Monaro and Capital Country regions of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, in Australia.
...
, before dying in 1829. Alexander's brother, William, then acquired an adjacent property which he also named The Briars and worked with Alexander, before dying in the goldfields in 1852.
Alexander's nephew, William Alexander (son of Thomas), later moved to
Wahroonga
Wahroonga is a suburb in the Upper North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, 18 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of Ku-ring-gai Council and Hornsby Shire. ...
,
Sydney, and also named his house there
The Briars.
In 1846, Alexander took livestock south with wife Emma, taking over the Tichingorouk run that had been established four years earlier, and renaming it The Briars. After a stint at the goldfields in the 1850s, he became a magistrate. They progressively built and expanded the homestead from the 1850s to the 1870s.
After Alexander died in 1877, the property passed to Emma, and then onto their eldest daughter Jane Emma in 1907. In 1954, it passed to her three granddaughters, Mary, Elizabeth and Anne. Marry and Elizabeth bought out Anne's share. Mary subsequently sold her share, the southern half, in 1972.
In 1976, Elizabeth's sons, Richard, Tony and Michael, gave the 8 hectare homestead and garden site jointly to the Shire and the National Trust, and sold the northern section (225 hectares) to the Shire. Its first public open day was in 1977.
A wetlands was established in 1985, and an outdoor education camp and public nursery in 1997. An "Eco-Living Display Centre" followed in 2009.
See also
*
Briars, Saint Helena
Briars is the name of the small pavilion in which Napoleon Bonaparte stayed for the first few weeks of his exile on Saint Helena in late 1815 before being moved to Longwood House.
The pavilion was in the garden of William Balcombe, an English ...
*
The Briars, Wahroonga
References
Homesteads in Victoria
Buildings and structures in the Shire of Mornington Peninsula
Houses completed in 1840
1840 establishments in Australia
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