BOLGART | Western Australia | www.wanowandthen.com

DESCRIPTION

Bolgart is a small town that depends mostly on wheat and sheep farming for its survival.

The local hotel was one of 6 state hotels that were built. The pub has been restored and features the original jarrah bar and floorboards.

Wyening

Wyening mission and winery is located in the south east of the Shire 10 kilometres north east of Bolgart. Now privately owned, the buildings are gradually being restored.

An annual Wine and Cheese night is held in March each year and is a lovely evening of wine, cheese and music. The Wyening Mission is open to the public by appointment.

Another town that started it's life as a railway siding (1917) the townsite was gazetted in 1921. Bishop Salvado (see New Norcia) started a mission here at first called Wyaning then later changed to Wyenning. The name is supposed to mean 'place of fear' or 'place of snake'. Good name for a mission dedicated to getting Aborigines to come in and be converted eh?

Find out more at the Wyening Website

HISTORY

Settlement dates from the 1840s when J. Scully took up land and the first farm to be settled in this area was near Bolgart. Bolgart Hotel was built in 1916 and the town site was gazetted in 1909.

The town is built near a spring (that G. F. Moore discovered in 1836) and derives it's name from the Aboriginal word 'bullgert', meaning magic swamp place. (Other sources quote the less romantic 'place of water' and the even worse 'magic bog'.) Moore wrote that the area was "a tract of several acres of rich ground covered with active springs, the grass rich and green".

TALL TALES AND TRUE

Light fingered Felix.

In the late 1870s there was a series of petty thefts in the area. Mostly the items were fruit, poultry and meat but when 'Peg Leg' Davis found his hay was being stolen, he hid in the stack one night with a pitchfork to catch the thief.

'Peg Leg' fell asleep but was woken when the thief made contact with the prongs of his pitch fork. Although the thief was gone by the time Davis crawled out of the stack, a certain Felix Murphy was found to have some suspicious wounds on his hands the next day.

As nothing came of it and old habits die hard, Felix went back to stealing and was later accused of stealing sheep, a much more serious offence. He managed to get acquitted but after moving to Southern Cross he was caught stealing again; this time it was supplies that he was carting from the railway depot to various merchants. Despite being given a character reference by no lesser man than John Forrest, Felix ended up in prison for 12 months.

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