Martin ZWEEP
The Heritage Council of Victoria are currently funding conservation works to the Murtoa Grain Store, more commonly known as the Murtoa Stick Shed, which is included in the Victorian Heritage Register as H0791. The paper will use the building and its current conservation works as a case study to examine issues surrounding the difficulties associated with the long term management and conservation of a large, unique and potentially redundant rural industrial structure. The Murtoa Stick Shed, is located within the Murtoa Grain Terminal in the Wimmera region of Victoria. The Wimmera is a region of flat open plains dominated by broad acre agriculture and is the largest grain growing region in Victoria. The building was constructed in 1941 in response to the need for the emergency storage of Victoria’s grain crops, brought on by Australia’s inability to export grain to Europe due to World War II. Despite being built as a temporary structure, the shed continued to be used for the bulk storage of grain until the 1990s. The shed is 280m long, 60m wide and 19m high at the ridge with a capacity of 3.4 million bushels. The hipped corrugated iron roof of the shed is supported on approximately 600 unmilled hardwood poles set in a concrete slab floor and braced with iron tie rods. These poles are the reason for use of the term “stick shed”. A number of similar sheds were built but this is believed to be the last extant of its type and is also believed to be the largest shed in Australia. The shed is architecturally significant as an expression on an unusually grand scale of Australia’s rural vernacular corrugated-iron tradition and as an illustration a rural Australian response to the impositions of the Second World War.
Since grain ceased being stored in the building there have been conflicting calls for either the demolition or the conservation of the place. Every proposal to conserve the building has been based on the economic viability of the reuse of the building to fund its conservation.
As a result the building has continued to deteriorate, adding weight to arguments for its removal. The conservation works currently being undertaken by the Heritage Council seeks to short circuit this spiral of deterioration by providing a stabilised structure that can be taken on by new management.
The conservation program and the search for an appropriate reuse is complicated by:
- its location: the shed is an ‘island’ within a working grain terminal
- a disinterested owner
- the remoteness of the site
- the size and age of the structure
- modern structural and safe working requirements
- a vocal body of local detractors, and
- a limited budget
While the proposed paper will have direct reference the conference theme of industrial heritage and the challenges and solution for its management, the paper will have some relevance to the theme of remote pastoralism. Although not a building associated with pastoralism, it is a place of agricultural infrastructure and shares many of the same concerns.