Home Amongst The Gums

A timber dwelling stands in rural New South Wales, its corrugated iron roof rusted to a deep brown-red, paint lifting from the walls in long curling sheets. Tall eucalyptus trees press in close on all sides, their canopy now reaching well above the roofline. The bush is not dramatic about it. It just keeps growing, and the building keeps giving way. Structures like this went up across the pastoral districts of New South Wales from the 1860s onward. The Robertson Land Acts of 1861 allowed free selection of up to 320 acres of Crown land, and settlers moved onto the Monaro and surrounding regions in numbers, building quickly from local timber using a maul, wedge, and broadaxe. A basic slab hut could be raised in two to three weeks. The timber walls were split tangentially along the grain, set between grooved posts, and the roofing followed whatever materials were available, progressing over generations from bark to wooden shingles to galvanised iron. Most of these properties were always working against the odds. The 1890s brought drought, a rabbit plague, and falling wool prices that halved sheep numbers across New South Wales. The 1991 collapse of the Wool Reserve Price Scheme, which sent prices crashing to around $3 per kilogram, delivered the final blow to many marginal pastoral properties. Each wave of hardship left more buildings standing empty. What remains here is the corrugated iron, the timber frame, and the trees. The photograph, made in 2018, records the building at a point well into that process of return. The walls still stand. The roof still holds its shape, just. But the eucalyptus trees are not waiting. Part of the A Place to Call Home series, which documents abandoned rural dwellings across New South Wales photographed by Brett Patman between 2016 and 2019.