Foreword Introduction The Evocative Panorama Justus Jorgensen and Montsalvat The Metamorphosis of the Middle Class The Pise-de-terre Connection Early Building ... read more

Foreword

Alan Marshal The spirit of place is not only an atmosphere created by nature arranging the entry of Man upon the stage; it must contain something of Man himself. There must ... read more

Introduction

Forty years association with the Shire of Eltham has indelibly imprinted on my mind that it is entirely different-both environmentally and socially from any other locality in ... read more

The Evocative Panorama

Walter Withers' house and studio. Cnr. Bolton and Brougham Sts It came as a delightful surprise to me to find that the mud brick buildings I first initiated and put on to a ... read more

Justus Jorgensen and Montsalvat

Creative communities develop creative lifestyles in the same way that affluent communities generate dreary ones. Life has to be lived and the affluent spend much time protecting ... read more

Metamorphosis of The Middle Class

Three young men, Graeme Bell, Roger Bell and Peter Glass, decided to build a mud brick house in Eltham in 1938. They were schoolboy friends who lived in Camberwell. They had ... read more

The Pise-de-Terre Connection

Earth building was cheap in those days when it was self-built. The innumerable services and standards of today were simply not there. It was a matter of making the bricks, ... read more

Early building experiences

The first earth building I designed in Eltham was for a client named Frank English. He was a returned soldier who had seen earth structures in the Middle East where he served ... read more

Historic Landmarks

The first mud brick house ever built in Eltham was constructed around 1860. It was known to us as Souter's Cottage. It is situated in Falkiner Street, South Eltham, behind what ... read more

Beginning of the Mud Brick Revival

The mud brick building movement really got into its stride in Eltham in 1948. The Frank English house and the Macmahon Ball studio developed a run of earth wall buildings. I ... read more

Professional mud brick building

I was in a semi-amateur role at the bank which had not stopped contributing my weekly salary and affording plenty of blotting paper on which to sketch up my new plans. It was ... read more

Aims, Objectives, and Spiritual Conflicts

Aims, Objectives, and Spiritual Conflicts I had set my heart upon an architectural career and in a way I had got it. But it was the first time I registered that the ... read more

The Tarnagulla-DunollyMoliagul Triangle

At this time post war Australia was pregnant with possibility and challenge. The country was enjoying an international 'high', partly due to its newfound capacities, partly ... read more

Mud Brick Builders of Colour, Culture and Accomplishment

The journey from Eltham to Tarnagulla was always undertaken by either Ernie Owen or Garnie Burgess, the only local carriers we had at the time. Some five or six workmen would be ... read more

The Socio-Aesthetic Society

Tim Burstall's connection with Eltham extended back to 1946. He worked on the repairs to the Brocksopp House, which was in those days known as Souter's Cottage. A couple of years ... read more

The Renaissance of the Australian Film Industry

The major contribution of Tim Burstall to the Eltham community in the 1950's was the making of the first film by Eltham Film Productions. The decision to make the film 'The Prize ... read more

The Impact of the Environment on the Eltham Inhabitants

There was strong unity of thought in the inner Eltham community around 1950. More than half would be numbered amongst those who fraternised at the Eltham Hotel garden on Saturday ... read more

The Impact of the Eltham Inhabitants on the Environment

My introduction to the two most able and fascinating men who ever came to Eltham took place in 1948. They were Professor Richard Downing and his long time friend Dorian Le ... read more

The Rediscovery of the Indigenous Landscape

It was because I was older than most of the Eltham community that I had a slight glimmer of the meaning of the indigenous environment before they did. My real understanding, ... read more

The Dunmoochin Episode

Few would dispute that Clifton Pugh has been one of Eltham's best artists ever since he established himself as a member of its creative community when he built at Cottles Bridge ... read more

The Dunmoochin Potters

It was ten years after Clif first settled in Dunmoochin that Peter and Helen Laycock moved in to begin a potters community within the artists' enclave. Two years earlier, they ... read more

Clifton Pugh's Success Story

Clifton Pugh, who now enjoys the highest position, both as a portrait and landscape painter, can look back on those hard early days at Cottles Bridge with some pleasure and ... read more

Games They Played

There were innumerable activities of a day-to-day nature that cannot be recorded, but John Serle, who was a painting student of Clifs for a considerable period, recalled some of ... read more

The Coming of the Corporate State

In the 1950's Eltham began to change from a rural village into an outer suburb of Greater Melbourne. As the metropolis covered nearly 2,000 sq. miles, the phrase 'outer suburb' ... read more

We Are What We Stand On

Other Publications

Author: Alistair Knox
A personal history of the Eltham Community

First published 1980

Adobe Press, Mount Pleasant Road, Eltham 3095

Copyright Alistair Knox 1980

ISBN 0 949909N

Contents