Toora Heritage Trail
The best way to see historic Toora is to wander around the town's streets (it only has four main streets - Harriet, Dutton, Stanley and Mill Streets - all of which are bisected by Gray and Victoria Streets).
The town has highlighted these older buildings:
1. 'Allthrea' at 17 Harriett Street (1905)
This magnificent house was built by the Lawrence family in 1905. This family had earlier farmed at Agnes; a small settlement east of Toora, where they owned areas of both hilly land and rich river flats near the Agnes River. They must have been very proud of their home with its 12 foot ornate pressed ceilings and beautifully carved overmantles around their fire places. The main entrance to the house faces the school oval (perhaps the family preferred to look up to the hills instead of looking down Gray Street as would have happened had they faced Harriett Street on which the block is situated). The Lawrence family and owners after them made use of the farmland around the house. Previous residents called the paddock above "Allthrea" the sapling paddock.
2. Toora Private Hospital at 22 Harriett Street
In 1927 the Toora Private Hospital was moved from its original premises on Welshpool Road to this house in Harriett Street. Nurse Harriett Everitt continued to provide nursing services at the hospital until her death at age 73 years in 1929. After her death the hospital continued to operate under the auspices of the Bush Nursing Association of Victoria with Sister Dwyer as the nurse in charge. The centre operated on a subscription service with reciprocal rights between members of various local centres. One of particular interest was the small isolated centre of Gunyah Centra. When it was necessary Gunyah residents were accepted as patients of Toora. With an average bed occupancy of 3.6 patients per day these new premises became too small and the committee decided to work towards a permanent hospital in Toora. Mr Dutton Green (whom Dutton Street was named after) made available a one acre site overlooking the town and Corner Inlet. This new Bush Nursing Hospital, located on the corner of the South Gippsland Highway and Silcocks Hill Road, was officially opened in 1933.
3. Police station and residence (1891) at 26 Harriett Street
The building of the Toora Police Station and Residence was an on going project from the time William Sedley Benn was successful in his tender of 48 pounds yearly in 1891. The first officer took possession of the residence in 1892 but Benn was still working on the site on and off for another decade. Stabling facilities were built to keep the Constable's only means of transport, his horse. Records show that a Constable John Hall came to Toora with his family in 1903. He was a hard working officer who was recommended for his service to the force in 1905. In 1906 he was highly commended for his courage and tact when dealing with the death of six children in a Mount Best fire. Constable Hall. was using the residence as his office when he tragically passed away there on 30th October 1908. The present residence is the original building. The first separate police station Office was built on the right hand side of the residence. However in 1969 the new police station office, to the left of the residence was built to provide more updated and spacious facilities.
4. Royal Standard Hotel at the corner of Victoria and Stanley Streets (1889)
5. The former Bank of Victoria building at 35 Stanley Street (1906)
The Bank of Victoria was the first bank in Toora to open its own premises on 21st December 1906. The building was erected at a cost of 1535 pounds. In 1927 The Bank of Victoria amalgamated with the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. During the rationalisation of branches in 1942 the Toora branch was closed and the building was sold in 1947 for 750 pounds. Blackwood lining boards were used extensively inside the building, the doors were 1.5 inches thick and the ceilings were 12 feet high. The bank vault in the banking chamber was 7ft tall and there was a state of the art bell system connecting the kitchen, main rooms and front and back door.
6. The former Great Southern Co-Operative (1904) at Stanley and Gray Street
In 1904 this large structure was built as a drapery store for Susannah Dawson. Later the building was taken over by the Great Southern Co-Operative as a branch store of the parent company, a factory at Foster. It was the largest shop in the town and provided all of life's necessities from 'the cradle to the grave'. Money transactions were transported from the office to the three different departments in the shop by a system of trolleys and cables. As the grain store level was higher than both the drapery and grocery departments sometimes the trolley wouldn't make the distance and instead came rattling back to the cashier. To reach the grocery department via the drapery department customers walked up a narrow incline. Beyond the grocery department was a drive for carts and later farm trucks to enter the grain store to load their farm requisites. Older residents can remember the cream trucks pulling up with cane baskets full of freshly baked bread from the Foster store to be sold at the co-op or to be sent out to their cream suppliers.
7. The former Union Bank building (1907) at 34 Stanley Street
This building was built in 1907 at a total cost of 2300 pounds. It was initially the Union Bank of Australia. In 1942 the Union Bank amalgamated with the A.N.Z. Bank and the building was sold to the Commercial Banking Group of Sydney for 900 pounds. This bank continued operation until 1982 when the building was sold to the National Bank of Australasia. The building was later sold to a local resident and the National Bank ceased trading from this building in 2002. This building is located in Stanley Street which is the street named after Stanley Sheppard, the owner of the land that was developed to form the current township of Toora.
8. Toora post office and residence (1915) at 13 Stanley Street
Toora's first post office was opened by Thomas Stanley Sheppard in 1882 at Old Toora Town, a distance West from the present township, along what was then called the "Telegraph Track" and the corner of "Tin Track", (a road used by early selectors to reach their land up in the hills). A few years later the post office store was sold to R.W. Santley but when the present township started to develop Santley relocated the post office to the south end of Stanley Street. In 1886 the number of letters handled at the post office was 4608 per annum. In about 1892 the post office found a new home on the corner of the Foster road and the top of Stanley Street and was run by Downing and Jacobs. It was not long before the growth of Toora warranted the building of a much larger post office. The present site was purchased in 1912 and the current buildings were built of double brick at a cost of 2000 pounds. The new post office opened for business in 1915 and contained morse code equipment and a telephone exchange.
Calls to areas outside the Toora district were trunk calls and a wait of up to 2 hours for a Melbourne number was not uncommon due to the shortage of trunk lines.
9. St Thomas' Church of England (1892-1910) at 7 Dutton Street
In November 1889 Mr. Stanley Sheppard donated land on which it was proposed that a brick church be built at a cost of 500 pounds. The Bishop of Melbourne laid the foundation stone for the church on February 19th, 1892 and after much fund-raising by the Toora Church of England community the final section of the building was completed and officially opened on Monday December 5th, 1892. In 1903 another round of fund-raising occurred in order to build an 18 foot brick extension and porch. This work was completed in June 1910. In 1912 the vestry was enlarged to serve as a meeting place for various societies and in February 1914 electric light replaced the gloom of the old kerosene lamps.
Photos:
Location
Cnr Victoria Street and Stanley Street, Toora 3962 Map
