The old Police Station Museum

Mount Barker (including the Porongurups)
Gateway to the Porongurups
Located 359 km south east of Perth on the Albany Highway, Mount Barker is the gateway to the beautiful Porongurups. It is a small and pleasant town surrounded by gently rolling hills and with a charming, winding main street.

Mount Barker was first explored in late 1829, nearly four years after the establishment of the penal colony at Albany which lies only 50 km to the south. The penal colony's surgeon Dr Thomas Braidwood Wilson with a small party consisting of two convicts, an Aboriginal guide named Mokare, a soldier and a Mr Kent, Albany's commissariat officer, set off from Albany on 2 December 1829 to explore the hinterland. They reached Mount Barker (which was named after Captain Collett Barker, the settlement's commandant) in late 1829 and then turned west and south reaching the coast near the present day site of Denmark.

Wilson's report on the area was favourable. Upon his return he wrote of of one of the local creeks 'we observed that its banks were covered with luxuriant grass, sprinkled with yellow buttercups which put us in mind of home' and that the 'gently swelling lightly wooded adjacent hills are well adapted for sheep-walks'.

The first settler into the area was Sir Richard Spencer, the Government Resident in Albany. In 1835 he bought 1 940 acres from Captain James Stirling who had been granted 100 000 acres in the area. This farm was an immediate success and although Spencer died in 1839 his wife continued to operate the farm until her death in 1855.

Spencer was followed by Lieutenant George Egerton-Warburton who married Spencer's daughter, Augusta, and took up land upstream in 1842. He named his property St Werburgh after an early English Saxon church.

In 1872 Egerton-Warburton's eldest brother, who was the Squire of Arley Hall and the rector of Northwich, sent £500 for the building of a church on the property. The result was a church of great vernacular originality. The ironwork (notably the altar rail and the chancel screen) was made on the family forge, the walls were made of a mixture of gravel, straw and clay, the font had been used for grinding flour and the roof was designed by Egerton-Warburton who also did all the plastering. The church is located on St Werburgh's Road, a few kilometres south of the town centre (take the Mount Barker Hill road out of town) on a hill above the Hay River. Below the church are the remains of the Hay River Bridge (now no more than a few old pit sawn timbers) which was built in 1858 and used continuously until 1968.

A rough track was established between Perth and Albany. It had reached Mount Barker by late 1835 and by 1860 the traffic on the track was sufficient for William Cooper to build the Bush Inn to cater for passing trade.

Over the years the Inn, which had started as a modest three rooms, grew as it became a regular stopping place for mailmen and a watering hole for local settlers and shepherds. In 1871 the first meeting of the Plantagenet Road Board was held at the Inn and in 1877 the Governor of Western Australia, Governor Weld, spent a night in the Inn. In 1880 it became a stopping point for the Cobb & Co coaches which plied the road between Albany and Perth. Its importance declined after the arrival of the railway in 1899. Today the ruins of the old inn can be seen in Marmion Street which is off Muirs Highway to the west of the town.

The area has always been agriculturally rich. Mixed farming was established towards the end of the nineteenth century and by 1910 there were 75 commercial orchards (mostly concentrating on apple growing) in the area. In 1917 the Mount Barker Fruitgrowers Cool Storage Co-operative was established. It was closed in 1975 and the orchards have largely given way to a thriving grape growing industry with high quality vineyards producing a range of excellent wines.

Things to see:  

Vineyards in the Area
The area around Mt Barker is a significant wine growing area. There are a number of vineyards and a number of wine makers in the area. The excellent Lower Great Southern map, produced by the Department of Land Administration, provides details of how to get to all the wineries and vineyards in the Mount Barker-Albany area including opening times and styles of wines available.

For wine buffs a visit to Plantagenet Wines, 45-46 Albany Highway, to taste the local rhine riesling, chardonnay, chenin blanc, frontignan, hermitage, cabernet sauvignon or pinot noir, is well worthwhile. The vines were planted in 1968, the first wine was bottled in 1972 and by 1976 the vineyard had won its first gold medal. Its cabernet sauvignon was rated as one of the four best in Australia in 1978.

The Forest Hill Vineyard, which lies 18 km west of Mt Barker, is open for sales from 10.00 am - 4.00 pm and specialises in white wines, ports and dry reds.

Police Station Museum
The chief attraction in the town is the old Police Station Museum. Built in 1867-68 by a convict road party it originally consisted of a living quarters, a coach house and stables for the police horses. Interestingly they forgot to build a lockup which meant that prisoners had to be tied to the kitchen table or to a log outside.

The local Historical Society's sheet on the building includes the interesting information that 'The station was built of the local ironstone, set in a sturdy jarrah framework, the stones cemented together in mud. The walls were then plastered over, and the plaster marked into large rectangles to resemble the blocks of Portland stone used for public buildings in England at the time. The walls were 14 inches thick. The roof was made of jarrah shingles...Timbers for the roof and flooring were pit sawn, and the iron nails were hand made.' The police station was closed down in 1908 and fell into considerable disrepair until it was taken over by the Plantagenet Historical Society in 1966, restored and opened to the public in 1971.

Today it is an unusual thematic museum with each room being a careful recreation of the way the rooms were used between about 1865 and 1910. The building contains interesting pieces of memorabilia such as a moustache cup and a hand operated vacuum cleaner.

A tree wraps around a rock in the Porongurup Ranges

Historic Buildings
Notable buildings in the town centre include All Saints Church (1900), the Old Post Office (1892) which was built at a cost of £933 and is now used as an Arts and Crafts Centre, and the Park Hotel (1912) which is a prominent main street landmark.

Porongurup National Park
To the east of Mount Barker lie the very unusual Porongurup National Park which covers 2350 ha. Porongurup itself is just a real one horse town where tourist information is provided for those people interested in exploring the Porongurup Ranges. The owners of the Gift Shop on Pongorup Road are happy to provide details of the best walks in the ranges and to direct visitors to such unusual sights as the huge tree which is literally growing out of a rock, the castle rock and the balancing rock.

Stirling Ranges
While the Porongurups are interesting they pale in comparison with the Stirling Ranges to the north (see Cranbrook) which are breathtaking. The Porongurups are only 12 km long although they can boast 20 peaks which rise over 600 m and a highest peak of over 700 m. They are really a relic area of the southwest with their tall karri trees.

Mount Toolbrunup - the Stirling Ranges near Cranbrook

Mount Barker Heritage Trail
There is an excellent Mt Barker Heritage Trail: Settlement and Development of the Mount Barker District brochure which covers all the town's attractions in great detail as well as a well written and informative history of the Plantagenet shire titled Plantagenet - Rich and beautiful.

	Tourist Information
	Mount Barker Tourist Bureau 57 Lowood Rd Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9851 1163 Facsimile: (08) 9851 1919
	Motels
	Plantagenet Motel/Hotel 9 Lowood Rd Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9851 1008 Rating: **
	Valley Views Motel & Chalets Albany Hwy Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9851 3899 Facsimile: (08) 9851 3800 Email: vvmotel@wn.com.au Rating: ***
	Hotels
	Mount Barker Hotel 39 Lowood Rd Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9851 1477
	Bed & Breakfast/Guesthouses
	Boronia Guest House 16 Langton Rd Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9851 1375
	Hayrocks Bed & Breakfast 3925 St Werburghs Rd Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9851 2196
	Lodges & Chalets
	Valley Views Motel & Chalets Albany Hwy Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9851 3899 Facsimile: (08) 9851 3800 Email: vvmotel@wn.com.au Rating: ***
	Caravan Parks
	Mount Barker Caravan Park Albany Hwy Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9851 1691 Rating: ***1/2
	Restaurants
	B P Mt Barker Roadhouse Restaurant Albany Hwy Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9851 1222
	Fifteen St Berry Farm Tea Rooms Orient Rd Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9851 2831
	Porongurup Shop & Tearooms Porongurup Rd Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9853 1110
	Sophies Restaurant Albany Hwy Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9851 1728
	Wing Hing Chinese Restaurant Albany Hwy Mount Barker WA 6324 Telephone: (08) 9851 1988