General News
2 March, 2023
Remembering the days of the old schoolyard
Transporting visitors to a schoolroom from the late 1800s, a historical building in Talbot has been restored to its former educational glory with its doors opening to the public tomorrow. First erected in 1874, the Dunach school building is the...
Transporting visitors to a schoolroom from the late 1800s, a historical building in Talbot has been restored to its former educational glory with its doors opening to the public tomorrow.
First erected in 1874, the Dunach school building is the town’s last remaining public structure — after being moved in 1974, it is now located next to the Talbot Arts & Historical Museum at 17 Camp Street, and it’s legacy has been preserved through a special exhibition.
Taking place this weekend, on March 4 from 10 am, the museum staff will welcome people to join in a celebration of the building’s rich past, highlighting its various uses through the years.
“It feels wonderful to finally open it up — just to see it looking so good again. It looked terribly unloved for a long time and while we cared, we didn’t have the resources before,” Talbot Arts & Historical Museum secretary Marion Miller said.
“There’s been a lot of fundraising going on but we were still a very long way from what we needed until the Central Goldfields Shire was able to pass on a grant to us, then suddenly we could get the work done.
“Getting it repaired and being able to reinstate the building to what it looked like in its early stages has been wonderful.”
Through the council and the Local, Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, the museum received funding of about $30,000 towards the restoration of the building.
There’s a whole range of reasons, Ms Miller said, behind putting funds and resources towards the building’s preservation.
“When it was at Dunach, it was not just a school room, it was the hub of the community. They had dances, engagement parties and even fundraisers — when soliders came home from the war, they were welcomed back through a function in this space,” she said.
“It is also Dunach’s only lasting public building because all the others that were in town, burned out in the 1985 bushfire but this school building had already been moved to Talbot so it survived.
“It’s also architecturally significant. The education department at the time had several kinds of standard layouts that they used in different locations, depending on what was needed. This is one of the very few examples that has survived of this particular design.”
The building was also once part of the Talbot Knitting Mill Annexe, used as a finishing room where garments were inspected and packed from 1974 to 1978.
With nostalgic memorabilia on display, Ms Miller is encouraging the community to come and attend the opening to see the exhibition for themselves.
“Older folk who walk in and see the desks and the blackboard, they relate to it, because I daresay, they go to their grandchildren’s schools, but it’s different and I guess for them that must feel very alien,” she said.
“They come in here and it’s home. It’s comfortable, it’s what they know. And it’s just lovely watching that interaction happen.
“We want people to come and experience that — we hope we’ll be able to welcome people who have a personal connection to the building.
“If people have photos, certificates, badges or anything else that’s relevant, we’re hoping with their permission, we can make copies of those things and keep them as part of the collection.”
