Many people, even some Keilor residents, are unaware the suburb has an Indigenous history that dates back 40,000 years, says the president of Keilor Historical Society.
“Or that the surveyor general of New South Wales, Charles Grimes, led an expedition through the town in 1803,” Susan Jennison says.
People coming to the Harrick’s Cottage open day on Saturday, March 18, can learn all about Keilor’s rich history, and that of the cottage built for an Irish immigrant in the early 1860s.
“For those who don’t know anything about the Keilor region, they’re going to learn an awful lot,” Mrs Jennison says. “The highlights are the total variety of history that we’ve been able to record.”
The open day will feature the exhibition:
Myriad of History Tales: countless stories about Keilor’s Heritage, which is a compilation of exhibitions the historical society has hosted over the past three decades.
The cottage is of regional significance as a rare example of a pioneer settler’s cottage in the Melbourne metropolitan region, according to the Victorian Heritage database. The house is named after James Harrick, a long-serving member of the Keilor shire council, whose family owned it until 1929.
The cottage is open on Saturday March 18, midday until 4pm at Harrick Road, Keilor Park. Entry is by gold coin donation.
