George Postans' Cottage (fmr), Hope Valley

Physical Description

The site was not accessed in 2021. The place comprises the ruin of a limestone cottage and other farm buildings surrounded by native and introduced vegetation. The east facing cottage comprises four rooms, including two with fireplaces. The kitchen contains a fireplace and a large brick oven. An addition has been added to the southern end of the cottage. No roof structure remains except in a section of the southern addition. There is considerable potential for archaeological deposits to be present across the site.

History

George Postans arrived in Western Australia as a convict aboard the Scindian in 1850. Convicted of housebreaking at 16, he received his ticket-of-leave by 1851. Postans married Harriet Green, widow of Edwin, in 1854 and was granted a full pardon in 1858. Postans worked in the Murray District and Pinjarra as a labourer, small farmer, and bricklayer. In the 1850s, he jointly worked on a farm in North Dandalup of 15 acres with his friend, William Pollard. He is also recorded as having employed five ticket-of-leave men in Toodyay, which may also have been while working with William Pollard. By 1880, he and his wife had saved enough to settle their large family, by then numbering fifteen, on 100 acres of land in what was to become Hope Valley. A plan of the property in a surveyor’s field book (name of surveyor illegible) is dated August 1880. The plan, drawn to scale, shows a 100 acre block of land attributed to George Postans, with two fields, one approximately 10 acres and ‘under cultivation’ in the southern half of the allotment. The survey plan was drawn during the very early settlement of the allotment, prior to the official transfer of title of land to George Postans in 1882. There are two other small features noted on the plan, in approximately the middle of the block, which may illustrate the presence of a dwelling or other structures. In 2014, descendants of the Postans and de San Miguel families identified an extant structure located at 233 Hope Valley Road (Lot 241, P245456) as the original Postans’ homestead, built by George Postans. This structure corresponds with the general location of the Postans’ Homestead indicated in the 1880 plan. In 1900, 28 acres of the original Cockburn Sound Location 241 allotment was transferred to George and Harriet’s son Frederick. George Postans retained the remaining 72 acres, in addition to the extra 100 acres he acquired in 1887. Frederick Postans’ Cottage, Hope Valley is located in the south-western corner of the property located at 41 Hendy Road

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