The Victorian Government has moved to protect one of Geelong’s last surviving Victorian homesteads.
Victorian Minister for Planning Richard Wynne has placed an interim heritage overlay over Claremont Homestead in Waurn Ponds until 31 December 2021.
In the meantime, the Government will work with the local council to apply permanent heritage protections to the property.
The Geelong Council only referred the homestead to the Planning Minister after they received an application to demolish it.
The Minister relies on local councils managing local planning matters in a timely fashion and this includes initiating the conservation and protection of local heritage places.
Claremont Homestead was built in 1857 by local Geelong architects, Shaw and Dowden, and is one of only a select number of rural farmhouses in the Victorian-Georgian style built in the 1850s near Geelong.
The homestead has been in the Baum family since it was bought by Gottfried Baum in 1894. It remained on the Baum’s 99-hectare farm after the surrounding land was sold off in the 1990’s and developed into Deakinwood Estate. The Baum family maintain a small orchard near the homestead.
The protections include the outbuildings connected to the homestead and a Norfolk Island Pine tree which was part of the homestead’s garden and remains a local landmark.
Source: Vic Government