The heritage-listed Barmah Muster yards will receive $75,000 to go towards repairs. Photos: Oliver Shedden.
Photo by
Oliver Shedden
The Victorian heritage-listed Barmah Muster yards have received $75,000 from the Victorian Government towards disaster recovery and repairs.
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The muster yards have been named as a recipient of the Victorian Government’s Disaster Recovery Heritage Grants for the state’s most treasured heritage landmarks damaged by natural disasters.
The Disaster Recovery Heritage Grants program was launched last year to help repair heritage sites impacted by extreme weather events, particularly to help small community organisations that needed more support after their insurance and damages were assessed following the October 2022 floods.
Victoria's heritage sites contribute about $2.4 billion each year towards the state's tourism industry and support around 185,000 jobs.
The Barmah Muster yards are in desperate need of repairs and haven’t been a functioning muster yard since 2007.
The annual Barmah Muster, which draws nearly 1,000 people annually used to be held at the site but was recently moved to the Barmah Racecourse Reserve due to the muster yards’ condition.
Barmah Forest Cattleman’s Association president Adam Harding emphasised the importance of the grant to begin the process of restoring the historic site to its former glory.
The cattleman’s shed is also in need of a facelift.
Photo by
Oliver Shedden
“It is an awesome start; I’m wrapped with that and over the moon to at least get something to begin fixing it because it is such an important site and has a lot of history,” he said.
“We are happy to be getting some help and if we could get any more that’d be amazing.
“You could spend another couple hundred thousand dollars on it, and it’d still not be fully fixed, it needs a lot of work.”
Mr Harding also highlighted the community’s desire to revitalise the space so it isn’t lost to time, but a lot of time and energy would be required.
“All the redwood fences need to be repaired, people used to sit on them to watch the muster, and we’d love to fix them up, so people could do that again but at the moment it’s too dangerous,” he said.
“It’s very difficult to try and repair anything because there is a lot of protocol to go through so nothing gets done, hopefully this is the start and is a bit of a stepping stone to bringing it back.
“It’d be great for all the young people who come to the musters to be out there and see the history of the site.
“If we don’t look after places like these they’ll be lost, if we leave it much longer it’ll get to the stage where it is too far gone.”