This Old House by Louise Tasker

The first settlers to own this part of Western Avenue were the Hamilton Muirheads. Hamilton purchased 80 acres in the late 1880s.  In those days red cedars and birches covered the land.  To make the land viable, it had to be denuded of most trees so that dairy and beef cattle could roam, and pineapples, citrus trees and bananas could be grown.  Good livings were made here in the early to mid-20th century.  

The house now situated on the old Muirhead property was not original to Montville.  It is a pretty Queenslander which was moved from Spring Hill, Brisbane, to Montville in 1996. It is believed to have been either a police station or a school, once upon a time.  

As we began to repair and renovate the house, I was able to make contact with the Cuthbertson family who had lived here as children in the 1950s and 60s, although in a fibro cottage that either burned down or fell down. They remember the beautiful jacaranda tree which every October continues to be covered with beautiful deep lavender blooms before it emerges into a voluminous green giant once more, shading our new back deck and kitchen. There was also a huge poinciana from which their father suspended a swing. By the time we arrived in 2016 the poinciana was being strangled by a fig and that fig now towers over everything.

The Cuthbertsons’ uncle and his family, the Hapgoods, lived in a timber house on the section of land next to ours which was at that time still part of the same acreage.  That house was known as Woontooba meaning highest point.  We have called our property Lower Woontooba as a nod to those days. 

When we made changes to the house, it was to renovate the kitchen which involved removing walls and windows, adding an ensuite, a covered back deck and side verandahs. Those changes have given us plenty of places to sit and muse.  The side verandahs are perfect for winter as they are wonderful sun traps.  The back deck has been used countless times for dinners, lunches, drinks, music and play rehearsals.

We held an open garden in 2022 and one of our visitors told us his wife’s mother, Joyce, during school holidays, used to visit her grandparents who lived on this property in the 1930s which was then still part of the Muirhead’s 80-acre allotment.  She would ride horses and those adventurous days were some of the great joys of her young life. She continued to visit every year until she was about 19 or 20.

We never counted on the weather

We never counted on the horrendous weather we all get here – howling hurtling winds, horizontal rain, and, lately, high humidity.  But all this weather has helped us to create a garden from an almost blank canvas.  There were some avocado trees plus a grafted mandarin and an orange tree.  The avocado trees reward us year after year – reward us for doing very little with them.  On the other hand, we have fed and pruned the mandarin and orange trees and the last two years they have given us so much sweet, juicy fruit that our friends have not had to visit a fruit shop!

Sometimes we talk about where we will go when this sloping meandering land becomes too much for us, and every time the conversation falters and fades into nothing because frankly where else could we go that would give us the sheer delight of living with a rainforest in our backyard, in a community that is kind and enveloping, with the lights of our closest town twinkling on the horizon?