Maffra Woolshed

The Maffra Woolshed stands in flat dairy country in eastern Gippsland, Victoria. It is a long, low building, timber-framed and corrugated-iron clad, with a galvanised roof that has gone matt and grey under the Victorian sun. The walls are weatherboard at the lower courses and corrugated iron above. A chute on the long side once delivered shorn fleeces to the loading bay. The building sits in a paddock dotted with redgum trees. Cattle now graze the country immediately around the shed. The fence-line in the foreground is post-and-wire, mended at intervals.

Maffra is dairy country, but it was a sheep run before that. The woolshed dates from the late nineteenth century, when this part of Gippsland was opened up for grazing after the original eucalypt cover was cleared. As sheep gave way to dairy in the mid-twentieth century, the wool industry contracted across the district. Most of the local woolsheds were either demolished, repurposed as machinery storage, or left to the weather. Some, like Maffra, were left standing because they were still useful for occasional work or because nobody had reason to pull them down. The shed is still here in 2018. The country around it has done several different jobs in the meantime.