City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

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DAREBIN HERITAGE STUDY STAGE 21 CREATING DAREBINIntroductionNatural process over thousands of years created the study area as it was at the time of Europeaninvasion and settlement. Creation stories of the Woi wurrung also explain how the widerlandscape was shaped by ancestor beings.This chapter incorporates the following themes:AAVAHT12.3 Spiritual places1. Tracing the evolution of the Australian environmentNatural History1.1 GeomorphologyDuring the long period between earth’s crust forming and life becoming abundant on Earth,little is known about the surface configuration of the planet. Most of eastern Australia was thenunder the sea, building up layers of mud and silt, and occasionally volcanic lavas (Cochrane et.al.1991). The sediments were squeezed and wrinkled, lifted up, and added on to the easternedge of Australia. Melbourne was one of the last areas to be raised above sea level, at the end ofthe Silurian period some 400 million years ago and so is based on early and late Siluriansiltstones and sandstones laid down just before then (today these are known as the AndersonsCreek and Dargile formations). A volcanic eruption around 380 million years ago left a plug ofQuartz-Feldspar which became Gresswell Hill.Glaciers scoured off the wrinkles and flattened the land before dinosaurs appeared. Australiadrifted away from Antarctica and New Zealand. A long period of volcanic eruptions startedand lava from the volcanoes forms what is known today as the Older Basalts.Around the time our ancestors started walking upright, the Melbourne area was againsubmerged on the eastern edge of a shallow sea and accumulated layers of sands (the BrightonGroup sands), which in some areas formed sandstones. The sea level fell again, and erosiongradually cut valleys through the Brighton Sands and down into the Silurian siltstones andsandstones. Remnants of the sands were left on higher ground. Occasional volcanic eruptionscontinued, filling the eroded valleys and gradually covering much of the area north and west ofMelbourne with lava flows (the Newer Basalts). Flows from Mount Cooper and Hayes Hillflowed down Darebin Creek, and other volcanoes north of Melbourne generated lava flowswhich flowed down the ancestral Merri and Darebin Creeks to the Yarra. As lava filled thevalleys, the Creeks started to flow around the edges of the lava flows, cutting down into thesofter Silurian sediments, often forming steep escarpments. In places the lava flows dammedthe creeks, and the Creeks formed swamps which filled with sediment. Then when the creekseventually eroded their way through the lava, wide alluvial plains were left.At Mount Cooper (also referred to as Mt Prospect in Kenna 1988), near present-day MtCooper Drive in Bundoora Park, along with the lava, much volcanic ash was ejected, fusing thesands it covered into rocks still visible today, although the ash has long been washed away.These rocks, together with another type of rock formed when chemicals leached out of the lavaand into the sand underneath (silcrete) were used by the Aborigines to make stone tools (MervLia, pers. comm.).At the time of colonisation, the Silurian sandstones and mudstones underlaid all of the City ofDarebin (today they are known as the Andersons Creek and Dargile formations). The BrightonSands remained on higher ground where erosion, and the lava flows were unable to reach - likepresent-day Rucker’s Hill, Pender’s Grove, West Preston (from the Reservoir shops east to10
VOLUME 2: THEMATIC ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORYSummerhill Village), Ruthven and the higher parts of Bundoora Park. These areas had deepsandy soils. The lower areas had been covered by flow after flow of lava, or by sedimentsdeposited recently in the valleys. The soils which developed on the lava flows were heavy blackcracking clays. The recent sediments formed the best soils, deep and well watered, suitable formarket gardening. The mid slopes usually had soils built on Silurian siltstones and sandstoneswhich tended to form thin poor soils. Refer to Map 2: Geology, for more detail.1.2 WaterwaysThe topography of Melbourne’s northern suburbs slopes generally downward from north tosouth, draining the southern slopes of the Great Dividing Range. Streams therefore generallyflow southward, and in the 2 million years since the area was last under the sea, creeks cutvalleys as they ran south to the sea.After their valleys were filled with lava flows many times, the creeks flowed largely through andover the basalt, but sometimes were pushed up against the Silurian sides of the valleys by a lavaflow, or blocked completely for a while by a lava flow. One flow from Hayes Hill nearDonnybrook flowed down Darebin Creek all the way to the Yarra at present day Alphingtonwhere it dammed the Yarra, encouraging it to form a broad floodplain which extended upDarebin Creek. Merri Creek was blocked a number of times and formed a number of swampswhich became floodplains - in what is now the Sumner Estate, the Northcote Golf Course andupstream to Goodwin Street, and in the vicinity of its tributary Edgars Creek.After having been pushed around by the lava flows, Merri and Darebin creeks as they now arehave cut the valleys which define Darebin and controlled its early history. The valleys left abroad ridge running down the middle of the municipality through Reservoir, Preston,Thornbury and Northcote.The Merri and Darebin creeks were fed by a network of smaller tributaries. The tributarieswere sometimes fed by springs where rain water soaked through the porous Brighton sands orthe heavily cracked basalts and accumulated on top of the impervious Silurian mudstones.Because of these springs both creeks retained pools of water even if they stopped flowing in thedriest weather. The creeks formed reliable water sources for the Aborigines, and so acted asmovement corridors north and south through the land.Figure 1Early engraving “On the Merri Creeknear Craigieburn”[National Library of Australia, an8737396]The basaltic nature of the Merri Creek meant that it was full of basalt boulders, and indeed theAboriginal name is thought to have been “Merri Merri”, meaning very rocky.The Merri Creek was described by one early settler in these terms: “the flashing water, verdanttrees...rocks, reeds and bushes all combine to produce a succession of scenes in the highestdegree picturesque” (Australian News 27/12/1877, p 202 in “The Merri Creek Study” PIRG1975).11
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3.14.1: Building to suit Australian
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CRITERION E:VOLUME 2: THEMATIC ENVI
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City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

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