Boronia: borders, billabongs, abattoirs, and billy carts...
I have always marvelled at
the boundaries that make up the suburb of Boronia. The suburb where I grew up its
boundaries was made up of four main roads, basically, a square, whereas Boronia
tends to duck in out of streets, alongside creeks and in some cases in and out between
people’s backyards. If you don’t believe me type Boronia into Google
maps and check out the Devenish and Millers Roads boundary. It kind of
explains Knox council’s urban and rural zones, but that is something for
another time. Things that I assumed were in Boronia due to their proximity to
the railway station has always thrown off my locality radar, for example, the Arboretum
– which is in Ferntree Gully, the old Boronia Marine site which is in
Bayswater and by comparison, our daughter who lived near Knox City at the south
end of Lewis road which I thought was Knoxfield but is still Boronia. It looks
like a very drunk man was given a pencil and was told to draw a picture of a
cat on a large map.
Because of this, I
keep getting confused and forget where Ferntree Gully starts and Boronia ends. (Bayswater
too, for that matter) Not, just me either, as I found out and this led me down
another local history rabbit hole.
I was looking at a new local history Facebook page a while back (the amazing Boronia, “The good old days” A fantastic source of old photos and memories) and I saw mention of a Boronia Abattoir. This was corrected by another post as I scrolled down the comments. It was actually the Ferntree Gully Abattoir and was situated smack on the border of both suburbs that is divided by Blind creek. Prior to the late 1960s early 1970s, there were no roads that crossed Blind creek between Dorset and Scoresby roads. The demarcation line was firmly set. These days Blind creek has a lovely walking and bike path and the roads once separated are all continuous. This means that you have a novel situation where things like houses with the progressive numbers 59 and 61 Rankin road are in different postcodes.
Now, Rankin road heading
south is quite a steep hill and is known by the locals as Piggy Hill, why?
There seems to be a
few theories.
In
2013 the Herald Sun in its Black & White section requests
were made if anyone knew why it was so-called. I don’t know how serious it was
but here’s a couple of the answers received.
One
man says he lived at the bottom of Rankin Rd and recalls one early morning when
a stolen car came speeding down the hill, failed to take the slight right-hand
kink at the bottom and ploughed into the large tree. It then glanced off the
tree and levelled the boot of his sister's car. Stating "We didn't know it was called Piggy
Hill. We just thought it was a pig of a hill.”
Another one is that in
the early 1960s there were two piggeries in the area, and one farmer wished to
buy the other out, but he would not sell. The first farmer moved all his
pigsties along the neighbouring farmers' fence and said “I will smell him out”
and it became known as Piggy Hill because of a farmers feud.
I doubt this one. I don’t
think an owner of a piggery would be upset by the smell of more pigs. My wife,
who has live in the area for over 35 years, told me she thought it was from all
the squeals from the kids when they rode their billy carts and later
skateboards down the steep incline. But I still think the fact the road
terminated at a creek that looked straight onto a slaughterhouse sounds a good
enough reason for such a name.
The Abattoir floor plan prior to demolition
Long before the Rankin
road literally crossed postcodes or the Blind Creek walking trail existed. Back
before Boronia existed (in name only, that was done in 1915) a slaughterhouse
existed on the south side of Blind creek. From earliest records approximately
1896 and an abattoir from the early 1900s. The originally allotted land was
owned by a J. McMahon and his lot (54A) ran from Burwood highway all the way down
to Blind Creek and who’s eastern boundary is where the road named after
him-McMahons road- now runs.
 |
| The green wedge |
Archived reports
from the Box Hill Reporter in 1903 wherein an article reporting the
sites upgrade to an abattoir by its owners the Pegler Brothers so upset and
divided the then Ferntree Gully Shire that three councillors resigned. Including
one A.E Chandler, the one who named Boronia. After a fragrant flower, could
there be a link? (of course not, I’m being facetious)
The old Robinson clay site
This small animal slaughter
yard operated in the south-west corner of the site from about 1896 to 1954. The
site was then purchased by the Castricum family in 1954 and a slaughterhouse, a
sheepskin drying shed and a pigsty were developed on the southern third of the
site - For reference picture, the end opposite Norvel Reserve- The remainder of
the site was used to hold sheep and for wastewater disposal. Then in 1978, the
Castricum family under the business Castricum Bros. Pty Ltd built the
Ferntree Gully Abattoirs (I have also
seen it referred to as the Rankin road meatworks) to complement their works in
Dandenong and comprised (on the southern third of the site) an office building,
abattoirs (slaughtering building); concrete paved holding yards, holding pens,
water storage tanks, wastewater treatment facility (including chemical storage
tanks) and an underground petrol tank. Other infrastructure included stormwater
drains, sewer pipes, electrical power lines.
Old-time residents
recall awful smells in the summer and others have said being allowed onto the
killing floor to watch the animals being put down, yes, they were different
times, obviously long before WorkSafe.
The Castricum family business continued to expand, and the
business ventured into export, eventually building new export processing
facilities at Dandenong in 1987 making the Ferntree Gully site redundant
and were eventually sold by the start of the 1990s.
The abattoirs were
demolished in late 1993 to early 1994 in preparation for the residential
subdivision. At roughly the same time the Castricums’ were establishing their
site in the mid-1950s, Robertson Industries had started operation of the clay
pit quarry next door. Robertson’s, for anyone who travelled to the city by
train, would know them by their tall brick and paver kiln chimney next to Nunawading
station. The station and the factory are gone now but the chimney still stands.
Whilst all traces of the
abattoir are long gone and a well-kept housing estate occupies its place, the
clay pit property still remains, though empty cleared and surrounded by a rusty
cyclone fence at the approximate seven-hectare site. Running down the middle of
both areas is a five-metre green belt that runs down to the creek and a
pleasant shortcut on a sunny day from Norvel road. At the back of the clay pit
site is an area being developed by the Knox council as a nature preserve and is
where the Blind creek billabong is situated. The front section of the site was
sold by Robertson Industries in 2016 for 30 million dollars and is yet to be
developed.
Sadly, I couldn’t find any
pictures of the abattoir from any era or even the clay pit when it was in
operation When the Knox Historical Society and local library opens again I can
have a good dig through their archives. Hopefully, this article will shake a
few memories loose and they might end up on social media. Local history, it
wonderful and you never know what you’ll find in your backyard, even if you’re
not sure where you are.
Originally published in BBCN Dec 2020 Edition
