Historical Archaeology Survey - VicRoads
https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/.../melbourneairportlinkbullahistoricalarch.

The above study took place in the areas where proposed alternate routes for a Bulla Village by-pass were located.

On pages 56-7, is OAKLANDS ROAD PAVING H7822-2308.
As the text cannot be copied and pasted,perhaps because the historians wanted to make it hard for someone like me to point out what wild assumptions were being made, I will have to transcribe what they wrote.

Before I do so, I must point out that most municipalities started their heritage studies about 30 years too late. In about 1990, I was driven around the areas north of Tullamarine by Syd Lloyd and Bob Blackwell to whom Syd introduced me. Syd and his brothers,including George who wrote MICKLEHAM ROAD 1920 TO 1952, were carriers who drove all around the Broadmeadows shire and Bob knew the Bulla and Greenvale areas like the back of his hand.

Bob showed me a brick, domed, well cover that was built for Felix Fitzgerald by his maternal grandfather, William Bedford, who also built the swing bridge over Deep Creek at the end of School Lane near the state school.

THE STUDY STATES:
4.4 OAKLANDS ROAD PAVING.
An area of brick paving is located beneath a boxthorn bush at the south west corner of the junction between
Oaklands and Somerton Rds 2.7 km north east of Bulla Village. As well as the hand- made brick paving there is a small number of glass and ceramic sherds in the vicinity. This is a probable residence or hotel of the late 19th/ early 20th Century,perhaps McNamara's Hotel. ......

4.5. CAMPBELL'S COTTAGE (No problems with this.Duncan Cambell was granted 9 acres nearly opposite the Hume and Hovell cairn and immediately north of Felix Fitzgerald's grant where Bob Blackwell showed me the dome covered well that his maternal grandfather had built.

4.6.OAKLANDS ROAD CISTERN.
A brick,domed cistern or well with cement rendering is situated in a field to the direct west of Oaklands Road 0.4 km south of Somerton Rd......and immediately north of the old Oaklands Rd bridge....Though the site cannot be identified with certainty,Moloney and Johnson (1998b)note "an underground well/tank,perhaps part of McNamara's Hotel" in a similar position.

After 25 years, I can't remember whether the well that William Bedford built for Felix Fitzgerald was on the 8 acres granted to Felix directly opposite the Hume and Hovell monument. But if there were any more domed wells remaining,I'm sure he would have given me the story behind all of them. It would have been good if the historic sites had been plotted on a map of section 1 showing the subdivision boundaries.


Previously in the study,it is claimed that McNamara's Hotel was at the south west corner of Oaklands and Somerton Rds. I checked my Bulla Bulla map and found that J.McNamara was indeed granted 10.5 acres at this very corner, the north east corner of the former town common. I thought it was amazing that I had never heard of such a hotel. Despite hours of searching, I found no connection between McNamara and Bulla or Oaklands Junction but this. My search included reports of Oaklands Hunt Club rides and not once was the Oaklands Hotel mentioned.

HUNT—M'NAMARA. —On the 17th inst.,at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, by the Rev. P. Aylward, John Hunt, late of Oaklands Hotel, Bulla, to Mrs.M'Namara, Junction Hotel, Redesdale.(P.1, Argus, 23-3-1876.)

John's former wife had not been long dead and the same name was given to the hotel.

HUNT.—On the 14th June at Oakland's Hotel,Bulla, of abscess of the lungs, Anastasia, the beloved wife of John Hunt, aged 34 years. R.I.P. MELBOURNE, SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1875.
(P.11, Advocate,Melbourne, 26-6-1875.)

FOR SALE or TO LET, HUNT'S
Oaklands Hotel, Bulla, with 70 acres of land
Apply on the premised, to J. Hunt. (P.11, Advocate, 8-1-1876.)
The Oaklands Hotel was described as being 16 miles from Melbourne in the advertisement on page 8 of the Argus of 21-12-1875.

Now,it's possible that Mrs McNamara was a partner in the Oaklands Hotel and that her children were serving drinks there so that locals called the pub McNamara's hotel. But where was it? Was the hotel and land owned or leased by John Hunt? Was the Oaklands Hotel Dean's Hotel or the Inverness Hotel?

I checked pages D 27-30 of my DICTIONARY HISTORY OF TULLAMARINE AND MILES AROUND and found that in 1868,John Dean, farmer, and William James Dean,butcher, were residents of Bulla and in 1871, William James Dean was running the Inverness Hotel. The oldest available assessment when I made my transcriptions was that of 1882-3.
No acreages were given but the following was recorded:
William J.Dean, 2 land blocks N.A.V.6 pounds and hotel N.A.V. 50 pounds; John, Joseph and William Jnr Dean N.A.V.20,1 and 5 pounds; John Dean Jnr N.A.V. 3 pounds,all of these being in the Main Deep Creek Rd subdivision; and Thomas J.Dean N.A.V. 32 pounds in the Oaklands and Green Gully Subdivision.

The Main Deep Creek Road Subdivision was section 1,the old town common between Oaklands Rd and Wildwood Rd. The Oaklands and Green Gully subdivision was section 3 north of Woodlands. It is possible that the aforementioned John Hunt was related to the Deans via the Standen family.

The 53 acres which John Cosgrave bought from Mary Daniel in 1853 was later owned by Hunt and Standen before it passed to Mrs T.J.Dean of Moonee Ponds,a daughter of Standen.(P.44,BULLA BULLA I.W.Symonds.)

I believe the Oaklands Hotel was Deans Hotel and that it was therefore in the SOUTH WEST CORNER of section 1 (the old town common),not the SOUTH WEST CORNER of Somerton and Oaklands Rd where McNamara's Hotel was claimed to be (on J.McNamara's grant. The 70 acres to be sold with the hotel could have included some of John Cosgrave's purchase between the Daniels' Narbonne and James Musgrove's land (the Ponderosa Zoo when Bob Blackwell showed it to me) which was purchased by the Oaklands Hunt Club for their kennels.

NEXT STEP-WERE DEAN'S HOTEL AND THE INVERNESS SO-NAMED IN 1875-6?

ANOTHER COMPLICATION!
It is possible that the Green Gully Hotel was McNamara's hotel but more likely that it was John Lavars' Greenvale Hotel on the south west corner of Somerton and Mickleham Rds in the parish of Yuroke and the shire of Broadmeadows. Green Gully was near the boundary between the parishes where the Moonee Ponds Creek enters Woodlands at 178 C6. The bridge referred to could have been at this point or at Melway 177J7. If the former, the hotel was probably Lavars' but if the latter, it is near the Oaklands Road Paving site and the supposed McNamara's Hotel.

SHIRE of BULLA-TENDERS for undermentioned WORKS, addressed to the President of the Bulla Shire Council, will be received up till 11 o clock a.m. on Thursday, the 15th day of July, 1875 -
Contract No l8 -Alternative tenders for the construction of a small bridge, either with timber or stone abutments, and about 10 chains of forming road, &c, near Green Gully Hotel,Bulla,(etc.)
(P.3, Argus,14-6-1875.)

I waded through 100 results (of 158 in a trove search for GREEN GULLY HOTEL and the only times this name was found occurred in the same advertisement in different issues. Green Gully was a natural feature and was Bullaese for "to the east". The part of Yuroke east of Green Gully had been named Greenvale in 1869 when school 890, nearSction Rd, was given the name of John McKerchar's farm,"Greenvale".

About that time,perhaps in 1871, John Lavars and John McKerchar donated land for what we know as Somerton Rd (for which no land had been reserved) and this caused quarrels between the two shires about the construction of a bridge at Green Gully. (GREENVALE LINKS WITH THE PAST, Annette Davis/Ferguson.)

I think the above proves conclusively that the bridge was at Green Gully and that the so-called Green Gully Hotel was actually the Greenvale Hotel (which already bore that name in 1875.)

So were Dean's Hotel and the Inverness Hotel mentioned in 1875?

Contract No. 4-76-8 chains of roadmaking near Dean's Hotel, Craig bank road*
Contract No. 6-76-12 chains of roadmaklng on Craig bank road, near bridge and Mr D.Patullo's
(P.3,Argus, 13-1-1875.)

*Dean's Hotel was on the east corner of Bulla and Wildwood Rds. The latter was called Craigbank road because it led to David Patullo's Craigbank but was later renamed Wildwood Rd after the McAuliffes' farm farther north.

There was only one mention in 1875 of the Inverness Hotel and that was in the city. How far from Melbourne was the Inverness Hotel?
Two Arrests by Police Patrol,
Called from Fairfield shortly after 1 o'clock yesterday morning the police patrol under Senior-constable Hunt arrested two men in connection with an attack on two guests and the licensee of the Inverness Hotel, about 15 miles from Melbourne, on the Bulla road. (P.16, Argus, 25-6-1928.)

This is part of an advertisement for the sale of the Glenara Estate and I presume it refers to Glenara itself.
The property has several miles of frontage to the Deep Creek, near Bulla Bulla, and is only 16 miles
from Melbourne. (P.3, Argus, 16-4-1874.)

The Oaklands Hotel was said to be 16 miles from Melbourne. My measurements on Melway from the 10 mile post (outside Sam Parr's The Elms at Tullamarine) indicate that the police report of the Inverness Hotel being about 15 miles from Melbourne is fairly spot-on. Dean's Hotel at the east corner of Wildwood Rd is almost another mile away, while the supposed site of McNamara's Hotel at the south west corner of Oaklands and Somerton Rds would be an extra 1.25 miles. The Oaklands Hotel could have been either Dean's or the Inverness.

I have found no evidence that there was ever a McNamara's Hotel at Bulla/ Oaklands Junction. John Hunt's Oaklands Hotel seems more likely to be the Inverness Hotel because it was situated at the junction of the Deep Creek and Oaklands Rds (Melway 177 H11, near Perimeter Rd.) However Dean's Hotel was about 16 miles from Melbourne. Whichever was the Oaklands,it is doubtful that Hunt owned the hotel. Walter Clark owned the Inverness and associated(58?) acres,having bought all of Alexander Kennedy's section 17 Tullamarine in about 1856.Dean's hotel was so named in early 1875 and W.J.Dean who'd been running the Inverness in 1871,bought the 23 acre crown allotment 22 of section 1 on 19-3-1870 and was rated on the hotel and two blocks in 1882-3.
John Hunt would have sold only stock,furniture and what they call goodwill in regards to the hotel. The 70 acres that he was selling could have been his own land not necessarily adjoining the hotel.

I will be delighted if somebody comes up with proof that there was a McNamara's Hotel at the south west corner of Oaklands and Somerton Rds. How about it Moloney and Johnson (1998);if you have proof of McNamara's Hotel which I've never seen mentioned by anybody else,even Isaac Batey,let's have it!