It never looked like this.....

In the 1920's Western Australia encouraged migrants to come to WA with a promise of a farm of their own. The catch was the land had to be cleared of large jarrah, marri and karri trees and the settlers lived in tents until they made a go of it and then they were provided with a home such as this. There are still a lot of dwellings like this in the Margaret River area which are the result of the settlers who survived a very tough initiation. More on the settler scheme can be found here.

Now this old settler home is the feature at the entrance to a very modern and high quality Brookland Valley Winery and the associated Flutes Restaurant and function centre.

It is amazing how things change. From land that couldn't be given away to "cow paddocks" to wineries and five star restaurants.

The old settlers would find it impossible to connect the Margaret River area of today with what confronted them when they first came to the area as part of the settlement scheme.

If the walls of this old house could talk, what stories would they tell?