Greenough - Culture and History

The appeal of Greenough lies in its sense of solidity and certainty. Realistically it is now a ghost town - only the National Trust guides are here to haunt the visitor. Yet in the churches, court house and police station - all of which are built in stone - there is a suggestion that this was a town built to last for eternity.

In his novel The Merry-go-Round in the Sea Geraldton–born novelist Randolph Stow capture the contradiction of a solid ghost town when he observes of Greenough: 'And on the Greenough Flats were big houses, a two–storied barracks that had quartered the soldiers who protected the first settlers against the blacks, a two–storied corn chandlers', a solid-looking church which suddenly, startlingly, disgorged a full congregation of sheep. The Greenough was full of ruins and history and agreeable reminders of the world's vanity.'

The valley where Greenough now stands was first explored by George Grey in 1839. Grey named the area after his sponsor Sir George Bellas Greenough, the then president of the Royal Geographical Society. It was an astute and political gesture. It has been claimed that Grey said the area would become 'the granary of Western Australia'.

In 1851, due to pressure from pastoralists, the explorer A. C. Gregory surveyed 30 000 acres of land which was subsequently broken up into 20 and 30 acre lots. At the time it was the northern-most settlement in Western Australia.

The Greenough Front Flats were first settled in 1852 and within a few years had developed into a highly successful wheat growing area. The people who settled in the area were poor (some were ex-convicts from the Labour Depot at Port Gregory) and many of the farms were prepared for sowing with nothing more than a shovel. Sowing was commonly done by hand and the wheat was reaped with a sickle.

That same year Clinch's Mill was built and houses, usually made from either local limestone or mud bricks, began to go up. In the next decade most of the buildings were constructed. With a population of over 1000 wheat farmers there was an obvious need for a hotel - the Hampton Arms was completed in 1863, a general store - Gray's Store was built in 1861, a police station - it was built by convicts between 1863-1868, and a school (1860). In the early years people lived in the simplest of shelters. It wasn't until the 1870s that residences began to be built in stone.

But the success of the settlement was short-lived. A series of disasters conspired to drive the wheat farmers off the land. A cyclone caused enormous damage in 1872, the area experienced bad flooding in 1888, and the wheat was adversely affected by red rust. These mishaps were enough to persuade many of the farmers to try their luck in the newly discovered goldfields to the east. By 1900 most of the settlers had either left the area of given up wheat farming for grazing. The town was left to fall into disrepair. It wasn't until the 1980s that a concerted effort was made to revitalise the settlement. Today it is one of the premier attractions of the Central West.