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Farewell to the past
SAM the horse (above right) spends most of his days lazing around in an unused hectare block in High st. Templestowe. The vacant farm land, complete with tire original family home and work sheds built in the early 1900s, has been Sam's home for many years, but soon the horse and buildings will be removed from one of the few remaining farm sites In Templestowe to make way for progress.
The land belonged to the Smith family, who also owned most of the surrounding blocks before they were sub-divided. The era of peach orchards, synonymous with the Smith family and the valley, soon will be gone.
The property was sold for $730,000 following Mr Cyril Smith’s death (he was 82) in June last year.
The deteriorating buildings are to be demolished by the new owners — Cannsco International — leaving only memories captured on film to remind future generations of what T^mplestowe once was.
Cyril Smith's brother. Mr Wilbur Lance Smith, is sorry to see his family’s land go to developers.
Yet Mr Smith — Lance to his family. and Peter to his friends — knows he can't stand in the way of progress.
"I will have to live with it and put up with it," he said. "The land could be used for a variety of things, but it Is up to the developer to use it to his advantage as our family did for so long."
Lance’s father moved to Templestowe in 1922. He added to his farm land as his family grew; to seven sons and five daughters.
Today. Lance and his wife Marjorie are the only remaining Smiths from the original family. Lance grew up on the peach orchard, cultivating the land, working horse-drawn ploughs, sorting and packing fruit, then carting it to market. Marjorie grew up in Doncaster only a few kilometers away.
They married in 1947 and moved in next door — still carrying on the family's orcharding name.
"I have lived there and there." Lance said pointing to the two homes. "All my life has been here.”
Looking across the valley, now covered with red tiled roofs, he reminisced: "Towards Shoppingtown many years ago all you could see were rows of fruit trees with the occasional wind break of pine trees.
"The farm houses were hidden among the orchards. Look at it now."
The stable, once home to four work horses, has been stripped of its history. Old horse collars, harnesses and cultivators have been donated to the Doncaster-Templestowe Historical Society, to preserve what little of the farm equipment that hasn't yet been sold for scrap metal.
"I remember when tractors came in and the horses were obsolete." said Lance. "The horses were so much trouble. You had to feed them, clean their stalls, harness and unharness them before ploughing the fields. With the tractor you just had to turn it on and put it away in the shed at the end of the day."
Sam the horse, now owned by a neighbor. Is the only animal on the farm. His stay will be cut short when the new owners develop the prime real estate.
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I used to live in Fyfe drive on the corner of Dean close which backed onto the farm. I used to play on the farm and visit Cyril and the horses often. He’d always have the fire going and biscuits to share with all of us who would turn up wanting to play and hide in the stables. Alexandra McLaren
Jessica Saban Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10217838971718727
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