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We can repair Murgheboluc’s old bluestone and basalt farmhouses and build sheds and verandahs on its farms along the Barwon River. A third of the land is under a watercourse overlay, so we check the permit side before anything is priced.
Murgheboluc is farming country on the Hamilton Highway west of Geelong, bordering Bannockburn and Inverleigh and running down to the Barwon River.
Some of Murgheboluc’s farmhouses date from the 1850s. Cameron Hill is on the Victorian Heritage Register as a rare one-and-a-half storey farmhouse, and Viewbank, Athelston, Edglestone, Butleigh, Poplars and Burnside are heritage-listed too. Timber windows, doors, verandahs and floors in old stone houses need careful repair.
A watercourse overlay covers about a third of Murgheboluc (33%). Its only exemptions are for roads and railways, so most new sheds, decks and extensions inside it need a permit. A Barwon River landscape overlay allows an addition under 6 metres high and no more than 50 square metres, in muted materials and more than 50 metres from the bank, without a permit under that overlay.
The median farm lot is about 31 hectares, and a new house needs a permit unless the lot is at least 100 hectares. Flood overlays follow the river, and five addresses are under the Bushfire Management Overlay. We have done 13 jobs in Bannockburn and 2 in Inverleigh, both next door.
Looking after the hall, the church or a farm business around Murgheboluc? That side of our work is on our commercial carpentry page.
What Murgheboluc’s farmhouses need most.
Repairs to old stone farmhouses and homesteads.
Timber sashes and doors in old stone walls.
Verandah repairs and rebuilds on old homesteads.
Extensions planned around the watercourse permit.
Timber floors in older houses.
Farm and house-yard fences.
The ongoing jobs on a working farm.
Tell us the road and the job.
Watercourse, landscape, flood and heritage controls.
Itemised, with any permit step set out.
New timber matched to the old, and the site cleaned up.
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.
Cameron Hill’s earliest part most probably dates from the late 1850s, and from the early 1860s it was owned by John Ritchie, a Scottish settler, carpenter, building contractor and vigneron. The public hall was built in 1874 as State School No. 1570 and is now run by a committee of management.
The 2021 census counted 132 residents with a median age of 45, every home a separate house. Old stone houses, river overlays and farm lots are why the work here is slow, careful and planned.
Bannockburn • Inverleigh • Teesdale • Golden Plains
Murgheboluc borders Gnarwarre, Bannockburn, Inverleigh and Stonehaven.
Tell us the road and the job, and we will come back with what’s allowed and a free estimate.