Kudala, now Kelly's Dairy Farm

320 Taylors Road, Carrum Downs

Citation:

History
Ernest W. Hall, grazier, was rated in 1923-24 for a building on the 261 acres in Crown Allotment 40 and part of Crown Allotment 33, Parish of Lyndhurst.1 The previous year it had been vacant land.2 Ernest Hall was there until 1927 when Benjamin Bayley, grazier, was recorded as the new owner.3

From 1928 until at least the late 1930s, the property was associated with the Colclough family. In 1928 H.G. Colclough of Queen Street, Melbourne, was recorded as the owner of the property occupied by Salmon, Colclough and Dossiter.1 ln the late 1930s, when H.G. Colclough was the owner still, the occupiers were Muriel Daphne Colclough, May Dossiter and Marjorie Salmon. The main building on the property, named Kudala, was identified as a 7-roomed weatherboard house on Crown Allotment 40 and part of 33.

More research into the history of this property is needed to understand the nature of this property, presumably run by three women, an unusual kind of management at the time. A search of later records is needed also to discover when the property became known as Kellys dairy farm.

Description
This weatherboarded, verandahed farm house has a distinctive tea-house Dutch-hipped roof form, corbelled red brick chimneys and a decorative slatted frieze to the verandah. The house is set at an angle, rather than facing the frontage as is typical, and there are near contemporary weatherboard out-buildings close by. The drive has some mature sugar gums and the gate is flanked by early timber posts and pickets. The house, although simple, is an unusual design for medium sized farm houses of the area.

Condition
The house appears externally original.

Context
The complex is set in flat pasture facing a gravelled road, typical of most road surfacing in the area until relatively recently.

Significance
This weatherboard clad farm house and out-buildings at Carrum Downs is of local historical significance as a well-preserved example of its type, with some landscape and out-buildings enhancing the sense of period of the complex. The house is architecturally distinctive among other farm houses of the same era in the area for its ornamental roof form and angled siting.

Boundaries
Extent of current allotment, including the gum drive planting, public view to the house from the drive entry, and the house and out-building exteriors.