MT IREH LONGFORD

Piers Dumaresq (Cu’97), son of Martin (Cu’62), is the sixth generation of his family to live at Mount Ireh, Longford. Piers’s ancestor, Edward Dumaresq, came to New South Wales as private secretary to his brother-in-law, General (Sir) Ralph Darling. In 1835, he was granted land by the Crown which the God-fearing Edward named Mount Ireh, meaning ‘the Lord will provide’. Piers has been at the helm since 2012, ensuring Mount Ireh is a viable business enterprise while also caring for the property’s significant historical buildings.

Nearby, Mountford has been home to the Mackinnons for five generations since 1877 when it was purchased by Allan Mackinnon, an immigrant from the Isle of Skye who arrived in 1822. His son, Charles, built up a flock of Corriedales ewes, and a Corriedale stud which became the oldest in the country. Mountford is now under the stewardship of Charles’s grandson, Hugh Mackinnon (P’67) and his wife Anne, and sons Charlie (P’97) and Roly (P’04), brothers to Marion Goss (Cl’01). Charlie manages the grazing and cropping side of the business, and Roly is in charge of Mountford Berries, which accounts for a significant part of their revenue. Hugh has worked closely with Landcare and Greening Australia to plant tens of thousands of trees, striving to leave Mountford in the best shape possible.

Near Ouse in the central highlands, Scott (M’71) and Sam Ashton-Jones (M’13) are the fourth and fifth generations of their family to live at the 10,000-acre property, Ashton. Their ancestor, Joseph Tice Gellibrand, arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1824. Gellibrand played a significant role in early European settlement before he disappeared, lost in the bush, on a journey from Corio Bay to Melbourne. It was Scott’s great-grandfather, Walter Ashton-Jones, who bought Ashton in the 1870s. Scott’s father, Geoffrey, inherited the property in 1967 and made significant contributions to the wool industry, developing Ashton alongside Scott and weathering some tough times. Scott’s wife Mary Lou (Nielsen, Clyde’66) has made her own significant contribution to Ashton, and her three sons from her previous marriage to Richard Mackinnon (M’71), Andrew (M’97), James (M’99) and Chas (M’04), are at home there.

George Mills (M’66) has the pleasure of living at Panshanger, the spectacular Italianate homestead dating from the 1830s that was nominated by former prime minister, Paul Keating, as one of his favourite Australian buildings. The property was purchased from a descendant of the original owner, Joseph Archer, by George’s great-grandfather, Thomas Mills, in 1908, as a wedding present for his son Charles. Thomas’s story was one of rags to riches – he arrived on the Queensland goldfields in 1869 as an illiterate butcher, and finished up as the owner of several profitable gold mines with large investments in the stock market. George and his wife Maree run a mixed grazing and cropping enterprise along with their son Nick, with a focus on sustainability.

Trefusis, near Ross – named in the 1820s by Cornish settler Captain William Bunster after the Trefusis estate in Cornwall – is home to Hamish Wallace (P’76) and his wife Georgie, who bought the property from Georgie’s parents, Jim and Jo McEwan, in 2007. The arrangement suited Georgie and her two sisters and ensured that the property remained in family hands after more than a century of continuous ownership by the McEwans. Georgie’s grandfather, Alec McEwan, the son of a Scottish immigrant, purchased Trefusis in 1923, and her father Jim took over the property upon Alec’s death in 1948. Georgie now runs an award-winning flock of Merino ewes, and Hamish runs composite breeding ewes for prime lamb production.