by Bernie Miller The Growth of Tourism and the Role of Guest Houses in the District Tourism blossomed close to Toolangi from the early 1880s. At Christmas, in peak tourist season 1885, Cobb and Co. recorded carrying 1064 passengers over 8 days to Healesville, Fernshaw...
by Alec Prentice Sewell I am writing these words in my 86th year, because of the ongoing loss of village, particularly here at Toolangi, with an increasing danger of our little children’s vision being blurred as to the who, what or where of our pioneers. Before all...
by Joanne Priestley Tennis has been a part of Toolangi since the early days of European settlement. The first record details an annual meeting of the Toolangi Tennis Club in 1901 when Mr Waters was re-elected Honorary Secretary and Mrs Bassett Honorary Treasurer....
by Joanne Priestley It would seem that cricket was played from the earliest days of settlement in Toolangi. The first report is of an annual ball of the cricket club being held in the schoolhouse in 1897.[i] One can assume that balls were held by the cricket club...
by Bernie Miller From the time I became involved in the history project in 2020, the Toolangi Football Club was mentioned by a number of locals. There were conflicting ideas of where and when the team played, almost 70 years ago. Some thought the home ground might...
by Margaret O’Connell Strengthening our community through opportunity, diversity and connection - Vision Statement 2019–2022 In 1995, under the auspices of the Kinglake District Neighbourhood House (KDNH), a local playgroup was started in Toolangi at ‘Toocom...
by Joanne Priestley Church services were held in the public hall/State School from as early as 1896 with the Pastor, Reverend E.S. Chase, incumbent of St Johns Healesville, hoping for more success in 1897 than the previous summer.[i] Services were held monthly during...
by David Pockett Well over 100 years ago, the local Toolangi and Castella community was pressuring hard for a railway, primarily to service the timber industry. Local agitation began in 1890, following which the Yea River (Railway/Tramway) League was formed, with Mr...
by Joanne Priestley Post offices were an integral part of early communities. Mail would be conveyed to the post office in a loose bag and then sorted by the postmaster or postmistress and held until collection. Like today, post offices offered Commonwealth banking...
by Joanne Priestley In 1914, 2835 babies died before their first birthday in Victoria.[i] A committee of medical practitioners recommended that baby clinics be established in Victoria in 1916. But it was Dr Isabella Younger (later Ross) who, with three friends,...
by Joanne Priestley The first building used as a hall in Toolangi was built in 1895 on the Toolangi Primary School site and measured 22 feet long and 14 feet wide. It was built by the local Toolangi residents and leased back to the Education Department as a school for...
by Steve Whitemore and Lynn Dean The year was 1979. Twelve starry-eyed urban socialists – Grant Borchers, Vicki Nobes, Steve and Anne Whitmore, Simon Harvey, Brian Tyler, Malenka Polkowski, Sally Mendes, Ian Locke, Jan Bennett, Lyn Dorrington and Colin O’Brien – met...
by Geoff Biggs Toolangi has been an integral part of Australia’s scientific world for over 100 years. The Magnetic Resonance observatory was established in Toolangi in 1919. This was built to replace the Melbourne Magnetic Resonance observatory in the Flagstaff...
by Jack and Ngaire Walhout Introduction Hi, it’s Jack and Ngaire Walhout here, with just a few memories of our forty-three years in the Toolangi/Castella community. Tallawalla Campsite In 1978 Jack was employed by Scripture Union to be Camp Ranger at their...
by Louie Johnston (née Priestley) and Joanne Priestley Introduction There have been Priestleys living on the Old Toolangi-Dixon’s Creek Road, Toolangi, since 1908. The family tree of the Priestleys can be traced back to 1272 in Yorkshire, England. Early Priestleys...
by Jenny Chambers I feel very much like a ‘Johnny‑come‑lately’ when you compare the time we have been in Toolangi with the likes of Biggs, McLaines, Dembys and Priestleys, but the fact that I have been asked to talk to you indicates that I am at least regarded as a...
by Bernie Miller Previous names and origin of the name Toolangi Toolangi and Mount Rose On commencing research for this article, there were many comments, locally and online, that the Toolangi district had been known as Mount Rose up until the 1890s. This...
from the memoirs of Alex Demby (1922-2010) Introduction As a little bloke I liked to travel to all the mills I could, in the T-Model Ford, with my father. The Burnie Mill, so named because the owner was an ex-Tassie, was bought by D. & J. Evans. They shifted to a...
by Bernie Miller Introduction In the 21st century, most Victorians associate gold mining with the Central Goldfields regions, including the Ballarat, Castlemaine and Bendigo districts, where gold finds led to the development of impressive regional towns and cities....
by Joanne Priestley Introduction Toolangi is home to lush mountain forests of gigantic Mountain Ash and some incredible ‘European’ tree specimens. The Copper Beech (Fagus sylvatica f. purpurea) at ‘Arden’ was planted by C.J. Dennis and Poet Laureate John Masefield in...
by Corina Horstra Introduction Today, potatoes make up an important part of the Australian diet, but in the 1930s the potato was an even bigger part of what Australians were eating every day. So when potato yields started dropping dramatically in the 1940s, the...
by Joanne Priestley In the 1950s, the yields from strawberry fruit crops in Victoria were low and declining. To a large extent this was due to repetitive vegetative propagation of plants infected with viruses. [Note 1] In addition, many of the available varieties were...
by Joanne Priestley George Rimington arrived from England in 1871 and in 1877, established the Parkhill nursery in Kew, Melbourne. George, his five sons, and grandsons expanded the business over the years to include several other nursery sites to supply their retail...
by Steve Meacher In 1996, nine artists from Australia and across the Asia-Pacific were selected to create the first ever Sculpture Trail in the Toolangi Forest. The sculptors created installations using materials sourced predominantly from the forest, drawing from...
by Anne-Maree McInerney, Director of the Gould League Although the closing of the Forest Discovery Centre in 2012 was a massive blow to the community of Toolangi, it didn’t see the demise of Forest Education, as Australia’s oldest registered environmental charity...
by Steve Meacher In the late 1980s there was increasing controversy regarding the native forest logging industry, particularly the wood chipping sector. The industry was spending millions of dollars to improve its image. Against this background, in the early 1990s the...
by Bernie Mace The small settlement of Toolangi, located on the ridge of the dividing range approximately 70 kilometres northeast of Melbourne, has long been appreciated for its mountain forest ‘ambience¢. In the context of the much broader environment, it’s located...
by Lynn Dean The Knitting Nannas of Toolangi (KNOT) was a group of grandmothers from Toolangi and Healesville who were deeply concerned about the logging of Toolangi State Forest. Even though there was a history of logging over the decades in Toolangi, it had...
by Steve Meacher The Toolangi-Castella area prior to European settlement Prior to the incursion of Europeans, the mountains of the Great Dividing Range surrounding Toolangi and Castella were dominated by spectacular, old growth forests (200-450 years of age). Severe...
by Steve Meacher The timber industry around Toolangi and Healesville peaked between 1917 and 1928 but declined due to the Depression, the 1926 bushfires and the 1929 timber strike[i]. In 1936 the Victorian government, the Forests Commission and Australian Paper...
by Sally Herbert, Principal At Toolangi Primary School our vision is to cultivate curious and innovative young minds. We encourage a life-long passion for learning through the promotion of academic excellence, communication skills and creativity. We engage in...
by Bernie Miller When I began researching the history of the school in the Toolangi-Castella area, I was surprised to find a history of three schools, not one. Two of these schools closed more than 90 years ago and their stories provide some insight into the waxing...
by Dawn Hartog, Captain Toolangi Fire Brigade is one of the 1,217 brigades that make up the Country Fire Authority (CFA), which was established after the disastrous 1939 Black Friday fires, when Charlie Demby, forestry officer and a member of one Toolangi’s...
by Alex Demby I was born on 30 January 1922. One of my first memories was of the 1926 fires. My mother told me that Mount St Leonard was ablaze. The bullockies used to burn off to get new growth of wild oats. She took me up near the Methodist Church one night, to...
by David Pockett Introduction Although they were well known to the Taungurung people for millennia, when first discovered by European settlers and explorers, the magnificent forests surrounding Toolangi and Castella were found to contain immense stands of Mountain Ash...
Speech by Margaret O’ConnellCommunity commemorative event held at Castella Central Park, 7 February 2019 My task is to talk about what happened in our Toolangi-Castella community after the 2009 fires, but firstly I want to specially thank the CFA members, DSE staff,...
Black Saturday Bushfires by Steve MeacherSaturday, February 7 The weather conditions in Toolangi on Saturday 7 February 2009 were exactly as we had been warned throughout the previous week, very hot with a blustery wind from the north. As predicted, the fire weather...
C.J. Dennis and the Singing Gardens of Toolangi by Jan WilliamsIntroduction Driving into the township of Toolangi, signs lead to The Singing Gardens, the Toolangi home of C. J. Dennis (1876–1938). Den, as he signed his works, was known as Australia’s ‘Laureate of the...
Bob Pockett, Local Historian by David Pockett Bob was born in Healesville, in May 1922, right in the middle of the guesthouse and tourism boom. At this time many of the key ‘players’ in the district were themselves making their own impacts on history, while...
Artists of Toolangi by Sunderai Felich Originally from metropolitan Melbourne, my partner Savaad and I moved to the Yarra Valley in 1986 after the birth of our son Meeran. We were thinking of building in Chum Creek when a local builder, Chris Overend, mentioned that...