A wattle and daub hut stands at the end of the street I grew up on. I remember clearly the first time my dad took me down to inspect the hut. This was at a time that the hut wasn’t surrounded by a tall cyclone fence and we were able to walk up to the hut and peek through into the interior. I still have a clear imprint of the hut interior which I doubt I will ever forget. 

A a child I was bewildered by the hut but had no concept as to the rarity of being able to inspect such a structure. The hut is one of the most well preserved wattle and daub huts that remains, the majority of which have been destroyed in bushfires or bulldozed to make way for new build projects. Situated in Warrandyte which was the first declared gold field in Victoria. The story of the Castle Road Slab hut is an enchanting one. The hut itself is comprised of a bark roof, clay floor, stringy bark slab exterior walls, wattle and daub interior walls and a hessian bag roof-lining. The hut is predicted to have be constructed during the late 1890’s and used by a fossicker at the turn of the century.

The single room hut was discovered in 1984 upon demolishing a weatherboard house that had been built to envelop the miners hut. There appears to be few records, if any of the weatherboard house and the reasoning as to why it was built to envelop this piece of vernacular architecture.

The modest Slab Hut a reminder of the vernacular architecture that once was, standing still within the landscape.

References:

Webpage:

Heritage Council Victoria 2007, Slab Cottage, Heritage Council Victoria, Viewed 11 September 2020, <https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/66280>

Heritage Council Victoria 2010, MINERS TIMBER SLAB COTTAGE, Heritage Council Victoria, Viewed 11 September 2020, <https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/55322>

Image:

Courtesy of Victorian Heritage Database, photograph, accessed 11.09.20,<https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/66280>