Broomehill, Western Australia
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Broomehill is a town on the
Great Southern Highway Great Southern Highway is a highway in the southern Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, starting from Great Eastern Highway at The Lakes, from Perth, and ending at Albany Highway near Cranbrook. It is the primary thoroughfare for this ...
between Katanning and Albany, in the Great Southern region of
Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
. Its
local government area 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 federated state, state, province, division (politica ...
is the Shire of Broomehill-Tambellup. While the townsite's name is Broomehill, the locality's official name is Broomehill Village, to differentiate it from the surrounding localities of Broomehill East and Broomehill West. Townsite and locality share identical borders..


History

The town of Broomehill (originally Broome Hill) owes its creation to the Great Southern Railway, which was completed in 1889. The railway runs from
Beverley Beverley is a market town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is located north-west of Hull city centre. At the 2021 census the built-up area of the town had a population of 30,930, and the smaller civil parish had ...
to Albany. Broomehill is named after Sir Frederick Napier Broome (1842–1896) who was then the Governor of Western Australia. Gold bearing
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...
was discovered by the station master around Broomehill in 1889. In the same year Patrick Garrity purchased two lots facing Jasper Street and built a galvanised iron hotel. By 1905 the hotel had been rebuilt in brick with more extensions added in 1908. Known as the Broomehill Hotel and later as the Imperial Hotel, the two storey tuck pointed building is now heritage listed. The townsite was gazetted by the Western Australian Land Company in 1890, which was recognised by the state government in 1897. A group of settlers from the now extinct town of Eticup moved to the present site of Broomehill to help establish a township after the construction of the railway was completed. These settlers included the Walshes, and the Curnows. These three families worked hard to establish the early structures. A
Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...
named Hamilton acquired of land around the townsite in 1890; T. W. Powell also acquired near the town from the Western Australian Land Company. A branch of the
Commercial Bank of Australia The Commercial Bank of Australia Limited (CBA) was an Australian and New Zealand retail bank which operated from 1866 until it merged with the Bank of New South Wales, which was established in 1817, to form the Westpac Banking Corporation in ...
was opened in the town-site in 1891. In 1892, a police station and post office were also established. The Imperial Hotel was operating in the town by late 1892. The Broomehill Agricultural Hall was opened by T. Norris, a settler of the area, in 1898. The population of the town was 72 (37 males and 35 females) in 1898. A local Progress association was formed in 1905 with C.J. Darcy taking the position of chairman. Broomehill Football Club had been established in or before 1907, playing games against surrounding towns such as Katanning. In the 1930's, Emile Genoni's farm named 'Etna' in Broome Hill was one of a group twelve farms around Australia experimenting with farming practices nowadays known as biodynamic agriculture. A cooperative was discussed in 1920 with insufficient capital being raised, in 1921 the cooperative commenced operations after having taken over the premises of Messrs E. Garrity and Company. The official spelling of Broomehill was changed from two words to one in 1959.


Economy

The main industry in town is
wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...
farming with the town being a
Cooperative Bulk Handling The CBH Group (commonly known as CBH, an acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled ...
receival site. There is also some sheep farming, while more recently farmers have diversified into
viticulture Viticulture (, "vine-growing"), viniculture (, "wine-growing"), or winegrowing is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine ...
and aquaculture (in the form of
barramundi The barramundi (''Lates calcarifer''), Asian sea bass, or giant sea perch (also known as dangri, apahap or siakap) is a species of catadromous fish in the family Latidae of the order Carangiformes. The species is widely distributed in the I ...
farming).


Features

The Holland Track, a well known walking and 4WD track, begins in Broomehill and ends in Coolgardie. The track was established in 1893 by the pioneer John Holland through the bush via Newdegate to the goldfields at Coolgardie.


References


External links

{{authority control Towns in Western Australia Shire of Broomehill-Tambellup Grain receival points of Western Australia