Leigh is obviously of the opinion that people that own land should be able to develop it as they see fit. I understand his point of view but if everyone saw things
his way, tourists to England would not see the quaint old pubs and villages and the ruins in Rome, Greece and Egypt would have been replaced with more useful structures ages ago. Any journals I write concern local and family history which motivate any effort I make to preserve heritage. Google "family tree circles, Leigh Coleman" to get the gist of his deleted comment.

What a surprise! Leigh Coleman owns 1A-1B Jetty Rd.(Southern Peninsula News, 7-2-2013.) What's more the councillor that seems to be driving this destructive amendment is the one who wanted to use our precious foreshore, degraded though it is, to build a non coastal-dependent swimming pool, despite the coastal management plan. I still feel sorry for Leigh though. If a heritage overlay had been placed on the ROSEBUD FISHING VILLAGE in its centenary year of 1972, not only would it have much more of its heritage value left but people who saw the land only as an investment opportunity would not have paid inflated prices for blocks.

Earlier subsequent owners of the blocks did not all depend on the sea but neither did they buy to make a profit. Harry Ellis on the eastern end of the village was a fisherman,as were the Aldersons and Freemans, continuing the tradition, but Edward Campbell, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, who bought the site of the application was just as keen on the sea and spent much time out in the bay on the Peatey boat. Evelyn Gough was the daughter of a high-ranking member of the Victorian navy; she had her house because of her love of the sea, not because she might sell at a profit.

Some of the councillors seem to be more interested in Gold Coast type development, to increase the rate base and fund their grand visions, than preserving the heritage values (pretty little village etc), that attracted holiday makers to Rosebud in the first place.Their glassy mansion concept will draw people all right, the jet ski hoons!

I have supplied the planning officers with rate and other information about some of the few remaining heritage buildings in Rosebud. Boyd's Cottage, 62 Rosebud Pde, now has a heritage overlay as a result. However there may be hidden treasures in the fishing village. Walking along the sea side of the village some time ago, I discovered what looked like a heritage building near the west end of the village but only because I ploughed through long grass behind a dense stand of trees. This house is not visible from the bike path, even from my former vantage point now, because a high fence has been erected.

As I intend to write about the fishing village in my EARLY ROSEBUD journal,I did some research on this house. The plan of the village and foreshore published recently re proposed consultation about planning the foreshore's development helped me to develop a correlation between the present village blocks and the original crown allotments. The house,at the north end of 914-916 Pt Nepean Rd, is on crown allotment 28 of the fishing village.

Crown allotment 28 was granted to Dromana pioneer and storekeeper,Nelson Rudduck, on 22-3-1887. He was also granted the second last block,c/a 31, which he donated for a Methodist Church that later functioned as a medical clinic and now houses x-ray and radiology facilities. This was Rosebud's only church for many years and many non-Methodist children, such as Vin Burnham,attended Sunday School there.

Before the assessment of 1912, Jane Sophia Rudduck, Nelson's wife, sold c/a 28 to J.H.Davies of Malvern. Its nett annual value was 3 pounds. The nett annual value increased from 3 pounds to 20 pounds between the assessments of 1913 and 1914. In 1915, the N.A.V. increased again,to 25 pounds,remaining at that level until the last available assessment of 1919, J.H.Davies still being rated on the property.

Its heritage values include its age,almost a century old now, its location at the beach end of the block (unlike William Ferrier's and Emily Durham's which were in the middle of their blocks) and being an example of the type of beach houses erected by Melbourne holiday makers.

The rather ugly looking double storey building on crown allotment 11,which I presume the developer intends to demolish for the cafe/apartment complex may have an additional value in that it was possibly built by Edward Campbell,Lord Mayor of Melbourne.

In my submission opposing the amendment necessary to allow the development to proceed, I stated that the council must conduct a thorough heritage study on the Rosebud Fishing Village before any demolition, alteration etc was allowed.No 914-916 may be just one of many treasures hidden behind the high fences!

Good news! The Shire's Strategic Planning officer thanked me for my information about a hidden treasure in the fishing village, agreed that a heritage assessment of the village is a priority and hopes to have a consultant start on it very shortly.

Well done itellya.

Thanks,tonkin!

Simon Lloyd,the heritage officer resigned. I wonder if this was because he was not allowed to start a heritage assessment on the fishing village because it might present obstacles to building a pool on the foreshore.

While I was doing a trove search for the Jarry and Greenfield families in Rosebud for the ROLL OF HONOUR journal,I came across a Rosebud fisherman who APPARENTLY decided not to buy his block.

County of Mornington, parish of Wannaeue, in the village of Rosebud, on the site of Mr. A. Christon's fisherman's licence. Upset price, ?8 per acre.
Allotment 26. 1r. 15.3p.
(P.3,Argus,27-5-1873, SPECIAL LOTS.)

This shows that the fishermen were leasing the sites of their huts from the Crown rather than squatting on the foreshore as I had thought. The mystery then is why the Kangerong Road Board had not been making them pay rates as the lime burners, who held their land under a similar licence, were expected to do.

Crown allotment 26 was sold in two parts, 20 perches near the beach (one eighth of an acre) and the larger southern part consisting of 35.2 perches. This makes a total of 55.2 perches or 1 rood 15.2 perches so the area on the Wannaeue parish map and in the advertisement differ by one tenth of a one hundred and sixtieth of an acre which is a pretty minor mistake.

However the names of the grantees of these two parts are a MAJOR MISTAKE. The part consisting of 20 perches is labelled A.Christie which should almost certainly be A.Christon. No wonder I had never heard of A.Christon! As there was no date of purchase* I had assumed that the block had been purchased much later by an ancestor of Sandy Christie (inventor of electric barbecues and president of the Dromana Historical Society when I started my research.) I have no idea what the name on the larger block is supposed to be but it was granted on 15-9-1874. This is what the name looks like: P.H.NChill.

In the 1879 rates, Andrew Nicholas, fisherman,was assessed on 1 lot and building, Wannaeue so he might have been the son of the grantee of the inland portion consisting of 35.2 perches. (The block should have been described as Rosebud!) Christon is not mentioned so another fisherman,Joseph Silver (Silva)the only possibility, must have been leasing the seaside portion of 20 perches unless he had bought it.

*Now that I can get the Wannaeue map on the internet and zoom, zoom,zoom,I have detected 73/3232 written on the north side of the block which would indicate that Christon had bought the part of the block on which his hut stood in 1873.

ROSEBUD FISHING VILLAGE HERITAGE STUDY.
This conversation between itellya and the shire's Strategic Heritage Planner will be forwarded to his successor with a query whether the study has commenced.

FROM ME 29-6-2013.
In my last email to you many moons ago, I mentioned a couple of houses in the Rosebud Fishing Village that were worth further investigation. One of them seemed to have an original portion displaying the wattle and daub construction, using lime instead of mud, that was described in the 1870's (in a report about the fishing areas of Port Phillip) as being common in many of the Rosebud huts. The other was a timber house at the north (beach) end of a block near the west end of the village.

The latter seems to be almost a hundred years old and has a different heritage value from the William Ferrier house (2nd block west of Murray Anderson Rd) in that it is an example of a house purpose built as a holiday residence for a Melbourne resident with a view to maximising the sea view.

Having stated that a thorough heritage assessment of the Rosebud Fishing Village should be completed before the planning amendment to allow the cafe/apartment complex on the east corner of Jetty Rd was pushed through, I was spurred into action when I saw the aerial photo re the Rosebud Pier Precinct on page 6 of Peninsula Wide, May 2013.

Using the photo, I was able to reconcile the present village blocks with the crown allotments. The old house is at the back of the block numbered 914-916. I had some difficulty finding it again because a high fence has been erected since I last saw it. It is not visible from the bike path because of a dense stand of trees.

Starting from Rosebud Pde and heading west we have No. 904 (crown allotment 25 with a 132 link frontage, about 26.5 metres), No.908 (c/a 26 with an 18 metre frontage and split into 35.2 perches at the front and 20 perches at the beach end), Nos. 910 and 912 (c/a 27 with a total frontage of 130 links, 26 metres, so a frontage for each of 13 metres),Nos 914-916 (c/a 28 having a one chain frontage, 20 metres, as do c/a 29, 30,31 and 32.)

Crown allotment 28 was granted to Dromana's Nelson Rudduck on 22-3-1887 as was c/a 31 which Nelson donated for the construction of the Methodist Church (which became a medical clinic and now houses a radiology clinic.) The church needs to be included in the heritage study because it was for many years Rosebud's only church and many non-Methodist children attended its Sunday School.

C/a 28 was split into two parts (front and back) of almost equal size some time after the 1919 assessment (the last one available on microfiche.)

Having established that the house was on crown allotment 28, I discovered in my transcription of 1919 rates that J.H.Davies of Malvern was rated on c/a 28 and buildings, Rosebud, nett annual value 25 pounds. A further inspection of rates was necessary to find when the house was built and to trace the previous owner(s). The following details are: municipal year, assessment number, person rated, property, nett annual value. Nelson Rudduck did not die until 1935 so his wife Jane Sophia (nee Chapman) was not a widow as the use of her own given names would seem to indicate.
1919-20, Ass. No. not recorded, J.H.Davies,c/a 28 Rosebud, 25 pounds.
7-12-1918, 2447, Ditto.
1917-18, 2225, Ditto.
1916-17, 1366, Ditto.
1915-16, 1384, Ditto.(N.A.V. 25 pounds!)
1914-15, 1266, Ditto but N.A.V. was 20 pounds.
1913-14, 1169, Ditto but N.A.V. was 3 pounds and there was obviously no building-which I forgot to record.
1912-13, 1200a, Jane Sophia Rudduck is crossed out and replaced with J.H.Davies;N.AV. 3 pounds.

The above would indicate that the house was built between the Septembers of 1913 and 1914 and that it will be a century old very soon. There might have been an extension built the next year (when the N.A.V. increased to 25 pounds), or the valuation of the house was thought to be too low or valuations increased generally;I could examine the third possibility if you like. I don't think there is much possibility of testing the first possibility because building(s) was generally used with no mention of the number of rooms.

The house is considered to have heritage value because:
A. It is an original house on a block in the Rosebud Fishing Village.

B.It was possibly the first village house built specifically as a holiday house and was built on the north end of the block to maximise sea views. Earlier houses were built by or for fishermen and were usually in the middle of the block,such as the William Ferrier house (which remains) and Emily Durham's house, probably built by Forti Lacco, in which Judith Mavis Cock (Judith Durham of The Seekers) spent her first six summers (sadly demolished.)

C.Crown allotments 28 and 31 illustrate how Dromana pioneers were involved in Rosebud and probably bought land as a form of superannuation. Henry George Chapman, Dromana's blacksmith, bought land on Woolcott's subdivision of crown allotment 18 Wannaeue on the west side of Jetty Rd.
Nelson Rudduck was a stalwart of the Methodist Church and was instrumental in establishing churches at Rosebud and Red Hill. As Davies bought c/a 28 from Jane Sophia Rudduck, this provides a link with "Piawola" at Dromana, built by Nelson Rudduck and bearing Jane's initials: J.S.R. (A DREAMTIME OF DROMANA P.61.) Nelson's son , Ernie built one of Rosebud's first stores and quickly rebuilt it after it was destroyed by fire.

D. The Rosebud Fishing Village is unique at least on the eastern side of Port Phillip Bay, being the only crown land on the foreshore to be alienated for residential purposes and probably was originally settled because of the location of the stranding of the Rosebud in 1855. Too much of its heritage has already disappeared and what remains must be preserved. Queenscliff's fishermen's precinct puts the Mornington Peninsula to shame!

E. The house will soon be a century old and very few houses in Rosebud have survived that long. Why is it that Rome and Athens can have buildings that are thousands of years old and no longer needed for the original purposes, England can have cottages hundreds of years old, and historic buildings along the coast near Mornington and Sorrento are lovingly preserved, but poor old Rosebud has to lose so much of its history?

Let me know if you'd like my copy of the aerial photo on which I have noted house numbers.
Regards, XXX XXXX.

FROM SIMON, 2-7-2013.
Thank you very much. Yes, the marked up aerial photo would be very helpful. I agree that assessing houses in this area is a priority. I hope to have a consultant on the ground within the next couple of months.

FROM ITELLYA, 3-7-2013.
After reading your reply late last night, I thought this morning that I'd better get the aerial photo to you before I mislaid it. I added crown allotment numbers eastward to c/a 10, showing how they correspond with present blocks; most are unchanged. I thought this extra information might help the consultant but it does not include house numbers. Frontages are given for each crown allotment in links. By the time I had done this,it was nearly time for me to leave for a Wednesday a.m. commitment so I hastily added the final details.

I explained that 100 links or one chain was roughly 20 metres and added that one link was 2 cm long; this was wrong and should be 20 cm (about 8 inches.) The other error caused by my haste is an arrow at the top of the aerial photo indicating that the streets on the other side of the highway headed due magnetic north; it should read magnetic SOUTH. After dropping the photo in the internal mail box, I realised that I had made these mistakes.

Could you fix these two errors before it dawns on everyone that I'm a half-wit, I'm trying to keep the fact a secret!