Brookhampton

Statement of Significance

Brookhampton was one of the first homesteads in the district and is associated with James Guy Thompson, and, by his two marriages, the Roe and Bussell families. Thomson was a prominent figure in the district and for many years the homestead was the social centre of the district. Although the extensive nature of the homestead is no longer legible, the three remaining buildings are very good examples of small Victorian Georgian buildings and the construction methods using hand made bricks fired on site illustrate the resourceful building techniques of the early settlers.

Physical Description

The homestead house was destroyed by fire and later, in c. the 1970s, a modern brick house was constructed in its place. Three buildings survive from the original homestead complex, two cottages and a schoolhouse. All three buildings are constructed of handmade red bricks laid in English bond. The largest of the three buildings is the cottage nearest the new house. This cottage is a two room building with a hipped roof and a skillion extension. There are two tall red brick chimneys. The other cottage is a simple Victorian Georgian building with a gabled roof, again comprising two rooms, with a central front door flanked by double hung timber sash windows. A verandah runs across the front facade and a large brick chimney protrudes from the rear wall. The third building is constructed on a large granite boulder and has granite footings. There is a double door in the centre of the front gable wall.

History

In the 1850s, a squatter named Mueller, which was anglicised to Miller, erected a slab hut on land that was taken up in 1858-9, as freehold and extensive pastoral leases, by James Guy Thomson (b. Oxfordshire, 1833; arr. 1855, d. 1890; m. 1856, Emma, d. 1876, daughter of Surveyor General J. S. Roe; m. 2nd 1878, Mary Elizabeth ‘Bessie’ Bussell). Until mid-1858, Thomson was in partnership with S. P. Phillips and A. Lee Steere, as Phillips and Co., graziers and horse-breeders, at Toodyay. He continued these pursuits at the place he named ‘Brookhampton’ after a family home in England. He was the first permanent settler in the district that took its name from his farm and pastoral station. In early 1860, he took his wife and family from Bunbury to visit the place, and the slab hut and kitchen became the nucleus of their home with the linear addition of three new rooms by May 1861, when they took up residence. At various periods in 1863-79, he employed a number of ticket-of-leave men, including carpenters and bricklayers, who probably worked on erecting some of the buildings and structures. His other employees included some Aboriginal people. ‘Gentleman’ Thomson as he was known had 14 children, nine from his first marriage and five from his second, and eventually the house comprised 15 rooms. Bricks were made and baked in kilns on the property to construct a number of buildings including a large separate kitchen, a school-room, cook’s bedroom, two staff bedrooms, a bathroom, dairy and storeroom. Two cottages and the school-room survive. Thomson was well known for his horse-breeding, including for the Indian Army, and there were stables for 30 horses and a racetrack. He planted couch grass from J. S. Roe’s garden in Perth on the flats by Thomson’s Brook, which became known as the best dairy land in the district. There were numerous other outbuildings. In 1882, two separate fires destroyed the hayshed and the carpenter’s shop.
During Thomson’s lifetime notable visitors who stayed for an extended period included his friend the poet Adam Lindsay Gordon and the botanist Dr. Ferdinand Von Mueller (later knighted, 1879), who collected flora in the surrounding district.
In 1890, James Guy Thomson (snr) died. When his ‘Valuable Farm and Station Property known as Brookhampton’, ‘one of the finest Station Properties in the South’, was advertised for sale in May 1891, it comprised 700 acres of freehold land and 80,000 acres leasehold, with about 800 cattle, 40 horses and 30 pigs (Inquirer 20 May 1891). The extensive improvements included the ‘roomy house with large kitchen, dairy, bath, store, and servants rooms and every requisite for a large establishment’, ‘excellent stabling and stockyards and all other necessary outbuildings’, ‘a large garden with vineyard and other fruit trees’ (ibid). It was not sold, and Thomson’s three eldest sons continued to work the property. In 1892, his widow married Captain L. H. Noyes and they moved to Busselton with her children.
James Guy Thomson (b. 1860), who had returned from the North-West in ill health, kept the accounts at ‘Brookhampton’ until he died there in late 1895. In c. 1895-6, when the leasehold land was resumed for settlement, Mervyn ‘Bon’ Thomson (b.1874, d. 1966) acquired ‘Brookhampton’ (2,500 acres) and John ‘Jack’ Thomson (b. 1866, d. 1944) acquired the area to the east (2,000 acres, later expanded to 6,000 acres), which he named ’Woodperry’ after the Thomson home in Oxford, England.
‘Bon’ Thomson continued to work ‘Brookhampton’, where he and his wife, Frances (née Yelverton) raised their son, Kynaston ‘Ken’, and six daughters. A series of fires badly damaged the house, including one that destroyed the brick additions. By 1948, the original part, ‘with its straight grey chimneys’, was ‘time-worn’, the stables were disused, and Ken was managing the property (West Australian 4 Dec. 1948).
In about the 1970s, the old house at ‘Brookhampton’ was replaced with a modern brick house. In 2012-13, ‘Brookhampton’ continues in the Thomson family under Jack Thomson’s grandson, John Thomson, who cares for the cottages and the schoolroom that survive. However, they are no longer habitable and he occupies the late twentieth century house.

Integrity/Authenticity

The remaining buildings have high integrity and authenticity.

Condition

Fair

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update

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