The earliest I can remember of Burrill is watching a bushfire with Marian from the west window one night as it came along the ridge. Everyone else was out fighting it. I was about 4 maybe. (1954)
Most of my memories are of the sixties.
There was no electricity at Burrill until about 1955. The big oil lamp was used on the kitchen table and hurricane lamps elsewhere. A wood stove was installed for cooking and heating. Dad Morgan was always the 'keeper' of the stove and could be trusted to smoke us out every morning about 6am after he had taken his walk to Blackburns Head to see any passing ships. (In those days you could see lots of them). He would collect cobs from the Banksia trees there to start the fire.
Firewood was delivered along Orfords Rd. and dumped where the drive is now. Dad Morgan did most of the chopping. ( He was born in 1888 so was about 70 at this time). The wood stove was finally removed in about ??????
Only the 'front' bedroom, bathroom and kitchen had internal walls (masonite) until the late 1950s. The exposed studs on the other side of these walls made good shelves for standing things like your watch on. The 'front' bedroom was initially Doris' and Marian's but in my time became Marian & Ken's with the 3/4 bed. I slept in a single bed in the loungeroom and Dad Morgan on a stretcher in the kitchen.
The table came from Ballina where Mum bought it during the war when everyone was leaving the coast for fear of invasion. It cost 6 shillings.
We would always get up about 4am at Rosebery on the Saturday and it was about a 5 hour drive in the old Austin so we would get to Burrill about 10am. There was only an ice chest and so ice was bought at Ulladulla from the big ice works. This is where the Civic Centre is now. We would stop on our way through and the big block of ice would be wrapped in hessian and put under Mum's feet in the car. Once we got the Holden in 1959 we left a bit later.
He loved to get out with his 'gads' and 'wedges' and break up rocks. (I still have them) One day he started to dig out a big rock in the car park when we were widening it and it came out and rolled down the hill. Luckily Mrs Mac's fence stopped it or it would have wrecked her house. It's still there by the fence (2003). Mrs Mac came home to find us repairing her fence and was so glad we were doing it that she gave Dad a big roll of fencing wire. Over the next few years Dad got the fencing bug. He would go over the beach and get driftwood for fence posts.
Mrs Mac lived on her own in the house directly below ours. She always kept chickens and we bought eggs from her. Sometimes I would find a nest with eggs in the bush. There were good apple trees in her yard. She died about 1966.
The Buffalo Hall was built in the early fifties (over the road from Mrs. Mac's). What could have possibly prompted its building in Burrill? I don't remember it ever being used and was empty with a "For Sale or To Rent" sign on it until at least 1970. The Waverley Band that I was in looked into buying it for a 'camp' but it was encumbered by some legal problem. (ie it hadn't ever been paid for).
The good old green Silent Knight refrigerator was bought second hand in about 1958 (Elsa first went to Burrill in 1957 and it wasn't there then but it was there before we sold the Austin in 1959). It was bought at an Auction sale at Burrill and Cliff Morgan had a small utility at the time and he picked it up. It was carried down from the track at Orford's by tying two pieces of 4 by 2 along each side. The newer fridge and microwave came from Rosebery in 1996.
The bathroom was unlined until the water was connected in 1968. All the picks & shovels etc. were stored in there. (Douglas as a 5 year old was too scared to go into it). There was a pressed metal bath . The water tank was a 1000 gallon size and it was part of the arriving and leaving ritual to bang on the tank to see how many 'rungs' of water were left in it.
I don't remember it ever being empty except when it developed a leak. We tried to fix it by pouring 2 inches of concrete into it but that didn't work and we had to pay a plumber. (I had to get inside the tank to place the concrete since I was the smallest....I was about 12).
Another ritual was for everyone except Dad to walk up the road so as to not overload the car. Even at night! This continued with the new Holden until one day Dad and I had been out getting sand along the road gutters and I went to get out at the bottom of the hill. He said "if this car can't make it up I'll trade it in." We never walked after that.
The sand was for making the concrete for the big flat area out the back. No wonder the concrete has started to crack up.
Another ritual was poor Dad having to clean out the grease trap last thing before we left every time. Then he would have a wash in the enamel dish.
On the second block there was a large tree that grew up from the rock (the stump 3m high is still there) and then went horizontal across the ground for about 6m at least. It was perfect for a kid's swing.
This might be a good time to explain the back and front of the house. To me the front was, and always will be, where the parking area was...i.e. the downhill side. This means that the door was in the back and the toilet was in the back yard. The younger generation who don't remember the road up the hill rightly call the uphill side the front. After all that is where the road is. So I talk of the front veranda and everyone else calls it the back veranda!
When we got the Holden in 1959, we had to enlarge the turning area at the front of the house. It was while doing this that Mum had a big rock dropped on her finger and we had to rush into the Milton Hospital. I used to go and kick that rock for a long time after!
There has been only one major break-in. In 1972 some kids got in through a little window in the fireplace and made a real mess. They threw beetroot and pineapple around then ripped up all the feather pillows and rubbed them in it. They painted on the walls and carpet rugs.
We had to paint the loungeroom walls. Up until then the lounge ceiling 'squares' had been painted different colours. Green in the centre, brown for the four corner squares and white for the rest.
Up until the mid sixties, the dairy over the lake delivered fresh, unpasteurised milk. It was my job to take the cream, enamelled billy down to Mrs Macs with a shilling at night and get it in the morning. (2 pints = 1 litre for 10 cents). Then it became illegal to sell unpasteurised milk. The billy is still at Burrill. The dairy was owned by Dingley's.
Just over the bridge there was an old house on the left and a mini-golf game in front. It always seemed to flood there. Where the Lions park is now had a lot of she-oak trees and an old house on the point. When the owners died there was an auction (around 1960) and I think the dressing table on the front verandah was bought at the auction. The house was then demolished. The trees died when they dredged the lake and pumped the sand onto the point, so they made Lions Park.
There were three shops in Burrill. The one where the Liquor store is now (cnr of McDonald Ave) was the grocery store we used most . The big shop on the left (closed in 1996) was only visited to buy papers ( there was a separate little section to the shop on the southern end). It was owned by Butson's who also started the caravan park behind it. The shop over the bridge was called the 'Lake Entrance Store'(E & F Young) and we only used it for fish bait and souvenirs. It was rebuilt in about ????? to the supermarket which is there now.
Next to the service station was a vacant block (now a car yard) where every Christmas there was a carnival. That was something to look forward to and save your money for. Finished in the early 60's.
The cricket oval on the flat (Federal St and Queenbeyan St.) always had a white picket fence around it until into the seventies.
The new highway bridge was built in 1957 to replace the old wooden one which was at the same location. I believe that an earlier bridge or ford was at the end of Princess Ave past the caravan park. I spent many hours fishing from the bridge even though there were and still are, signs prohibiting it. We used to catch mainly toad-fish and throw them on the road to watch them get run over. Then they stunk!
There was an old 2 storey 'log cabin' at the corner of McDonald and Commonwealth Ave but it burned down about ????. I Think this was the 'Canberra Guest House'.
There was a timber mill over on the highway south of the lake where the Snuggle Inn motel is. It was burnt in a bush fire....possibly the same one I remember above in 1954. This was a big blow to Burrill.
Princess Ave got its name after it stopped being the Princes Highway (when? probably in the thirties when Dad was working on the road further south). The deeds show that the road up the side is the Prince's Highway. The hill on the highway where the track to Blackburns goes was called 'Coopers Hill'. You now turn off Cooper St to Canberra Cresc. The original land grant around here was to Mary Ann Cooper. Blackburns Head is not called that on any maps I have seen. It was called Blackburns Lookout because the Blackburn family (who owned shops in Milton) used to drive their first car in the district to there for family picnics.
Straight up the hill from the house was a big old house on top of the hill surrounded by a nice yard. The owners told a story of seeing lights winking on Pigeon House mountain on the night before the Jap submarines got into Sydney Harbour.
I spent a lot of time in the 'tadpole hole' along the ridge. (Now it's in someone's backyard about 10 houses along). The big rock ledge extended right along and it was great for playing on. There was a big tree which had fallen across another to make a giant see-saw. Along this rock shelf (about 3 blocks) was also our garbage dump where we threw all our cans and bottles.
Another favourite past-time was 'sand-sledding' down the big sandhill behind the caravan park. I bought a sheet of aluminium an wrapped it around a timber plank and put a seat and foot rest on it. The aluminium was waxed with an old candle and it really went.
Before the veranda, there was a double bed and single bed in the existing loungeroom.(see drawing). There were no lounge chairs. The old wireless was in the corner near the kitchen, where the power point is. That was the reason for the power point! This wireless was built by Dad's brother Jim in the thirties. It was originally battery powered.
The only other power point was behind that in the kitchen. Then we had one added when we got the fridge and I installed the others in the front bedroom & loungeroom (1985) and bathroom (1968). [I nearly killed myself doing this, I got a 240V shock across my hands. I had asked Ken to turn off the power at the box but he didn't hear me and I just went ahead.]
The old wireless (radio) was built by Dad's brother Jim in the 30's. Dad would always have a session at night when it got dark and the short wave reception was best. The nearest stations were Nowra and Bega and neither could be received in the day.
In the mid sixties, a house was built way out in the bush about where the big bend of Canberra Cres. is now. The owner built a corduroy log road from Braidwood Ave near where the water tank now is. Another was built next to Orford's. We didn't realised this was the beginning of the opening up of Canberra Cres. [Orfords had long since left and for a while there was a Mrs MacKenzie (?). She was a nurse at Milton. She once took us to rain forest on private property near the Lake Conjola turn-off. She had a great collection of sea shells.]
The water supply was connected in April 1968 and at that time we brought the old Zip bath water heater from Rosebery down. (Rosebery bathroom was remodelled in 1964). The bath was removed and the shower installed. We then had hot water for the shower and the kitchen sink ! Remodelling the bathroom meant it got lined and there was no longer room for all the tools so Dad built the small lock-up under the house.
The tank remained in place with a single outside tap until about ???. That was good drinking water!
The trenching for the water mains down the side wrecked the road and it took Dad a lot of letter writing to get the Council to replace it because it was 'illegal'. But as we had no other entry at the time they finally fixed it. But we did start using the top (Orford's) road (Canberra Cres) at times.
The 'front' veranda was added in the second half of 1970 and cost $1200. It had to have a second door for Council regulations even though we have always had a bed in front of it.
The low dividing wall which forms the front bedroom was built at this time (Greg & Dad) and the double bed moved out there so it became a real bedroom and we had a real loungeroom.
Christmas 1974 was the last big family get-together at Burrill.(until 2003) Bill & Elsa came up from Melbourne. In the sixties there were a couple of occasions when the Reeds and Cliff & Leonne also came down and rented a house along Commonwealth Ave.
The sewer was connected about 1975 . The bathroom was remodelled again with a new toilet, water heater and bench around the basin. While they were blasting for the sewer down the side, a blast went wrong a rocks smashed some roof tiles, broke the fibro under the bathroom window and smashed the concrete. The house roof tiles were replaced by taking the tiles from the outside toilet and it got a flat iron roof.
The trenching over the road virtually wrecked it again. Even though they replaced the concrete tracks, the water running down the hill washed them out. We kept using it for a while but by this time Canberra Cres was built so we abandoned the road. Again we had problems with trail bikes.
The 'real' Canberra Cres was constructed in about ???? and the old part towards the highway closed off. .Around the same time, the old highway, Commonwealth Ave and Braidwood Ave connections to the highway were closed off as they were 'blind' intersections and becoming dangerous with the increasing traffic.
(see maps)
Canberra Cres was kerbed in late 1992. We had to pay half the cost at $40/metre so would have cost just under $1,000. The subsequent drainage works put all the water runoff down the side of the house and caused major erosion. At least after this there was no need to maintain all the drains Dad had built along the top fence line to keep the water from the hill away from the house.
The Post Office closed in about 1995 and the Butchers the same year. The butchers reopened as a fresh seafood shop.
In 1997 we had a big family get together on Australia day. In 1999 we had the front verandah windows repaired and painted and the fibro on the 'chimney' replaced as the ivy had grown under it and broken it.
At Easter 2001, we (Bruce, Ken and Greg) replaced the corrugated iron on the verandah. In 2002 the name Cooper St was changed to Canberra Cres. (Canberra Cres used to be the straight extension across to the highway, but had been closed for many years.) The sign on the highway used to say "Cooper St. - to Canberra Cres."
The big middle verandah window was broken in June 2003.
Greg's notes (1996), added to 26/12/99
Dad Morgan almost always came down with us in the sixties. I don't know how Mum told him which weekends we would be going but he would often be sitting on the fence at Rosebery when I got home from school on Friday (Mum was at work).
Sometimes we would hire an inboard motor boat from one of the houses along McDonald Pde to go fishing on the lake. Never caught anything much. Beforehand we would go pippying on Burrill beach to get the bait.
There was commercial fishing on the lake up until about 2001. There were two or three old shacks at the back of the caravan park belonging to a couple of old men (now occupied by the very expensive cabins) and also near the service station up until the early 90's.
Unfortunately, it broke one day - luckily we had normally parked the car under there, but we were out shopping in Ulladulla !(- the bits are still lying just over the rock ledge).
Very soon after the water went through, new telephone cables were laid and this wrecked the road again! At least the PMG fixed it OK.
With all the vegetation being removed for the trenching, we had a lot of trouble with trail bikes using it and causing lots of erosion. But slowly the trees and blackberries closed in.
Looking down the hill at the trench work. Princess Ave is still dirt.
The outdoor picture show was built in Nov 1946 and closed down in about 1991. It reopened for Christmas in 1992 and 1993 but with the opening of the Cinema Complex in Ulladulla it didn't open even for Christmas in 95 & 96. Milton cinema also closed at that time. The Burrill theatre was demolished in ?? . The theatre had canvas deck type chairs half were under cover. You had to bring your own blankets and pillows to be get comfortable. There were big oil heaters in winter. In later years the seats down the front in the open were removed and replaced with grass so you could lie on rugs.
Getting ready to go home after the work. Canberra Cres.
24/8/03 - big windstorm. Tree down in car park area.
May 2005 - big hailstorm. One front hopper window broken.