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We can repair and add to Barrabool’s farm homes and old homesteads in the hills above the Barwon River. Several homesteads are heritage-listed, and a river landscape overlay covers the land along the river, so we check both first.
Barrabool is hill farming country above the Barwon River, between Ceres, Waurn Ponds and Mount Moriac, with no township of its own.
The median property is about 13.9 hectares, and nearly six in ten homes have four or more bedrooms. Barrabool’s 19th-century homesteads, barns and stables sit beside newer farmhouses. Verandahs, decks, sheds and careful repairs are the usual list. We have done 13 jobs in Waurn Ponds and work in Ceres next door.
Ballanclea, Berramongo, Merrawarp, Stanbury Barn and Wescott’s Stable have paint and internal controls, and Foymount and Tasman have paint controls. The Uniting church, Holy Trinity and Neuchatel are listed too. Normal outbuilding and fence exemptions apply at the locally listed places; Holy Trinity and Neuchatel are on the Victorian Heritage Register, which has its own rules.
Along the river, a landscape overlay lets a building go ahead without a permit only if it is under 6 metres high, adds no more than 50 square metres, uses muted, natural, low-reflective colours and is more than 50 metres from the top of the bank. Across Barrabool, the Farming Zone needs 40 hectares for a house without a permit. Almost all of Barrabool is bushfire prone.
Looking after the cellar door, a church or a farm business in Barrabool? That side of our work is on our commercial carpentry page.
What Barrabool’s farm homes and homesteads need most.
Homesteads, barns and stables with heritage controls.
Verandahs matched to older homesteads.
Timber cladding on farmhouses.
Decks that take the view over the valley.
Additions within the river landscape limits.
Fences, checked against the river-bank rules.
Old doors and sashes kept working.
The road and whether it’s near the river or heritage-listed.
Heritage controls, the river landscape rule and farm setbacks.
Free and itemised, with any permit step included.
Timber, profiles and paint matched to what’s there.
Beyond our expectations, and it was great to work with people who could turn our ideas into something better than we imagined. Couldn’t recommend them highly enough.
Prompt, great communication and a terrific job. Have used JF Maintenance for lots of work over the years and would recommend.
Michael worked with our budget and we were so impressed by their diligence and workmanship. They did not cut corners but went the extra mile. So impressed we engaged them again at another property.
The former Holy Trinity Church School, built in 1847, is the second earliest known surviving school building in Victoria and the earliest known in the Geelong region. The Berramongo estate and Suisse vineyard followed in the 1850s, but a township never developed.
The 2021 census counted 247 residents with a median age of 44, every home a separate house. Heritage homesteads, river slopes and fire rules are why the work here is careful and well planned.
Ceres • Waurn Ponds • Mount Moriac • Fyansford • Surf Coast
Barrabool borders Stonehaven, Mount Moriac, Gnarwarre, Ceres and Waurn Ponds.
Tell us about the house and whether it’s listed, and we will come back with a free estimate.