Turnbridge Jill

Stamford Park in the 1920s

From 1922 until the property was sold in the 1930s, Jill and Barbara Tunbridge and their mother and father (also their brother in school holidays) spent a great deal of time at “Daibyn” (Stamford Park). The property had been purchased by an older couple and they re-named the property “Daibyn” which they said meant “Little Birds”.

This couple were a Mr and Mrs Murray. The wife called her husband Jack and he called her Belle. We are not sure what their first names or initials would have been as my mother was a younger generation and in those days naturally addressed them as “Mr and Mrs Murray”.

He was a typical fine looking bushman of the old school with a flowing white beard. Mrs Murray was petite in stature with blue eyes and pretty white hair drawn back into a bun.

Down from Queensland

The Murrays used to drive up and down to central Queensland in the old “Overland” car, camping on the way. They sometimes travelled along back roads where there was no accommodation available.

My mother’s youngest brother had gone as a jackeroo on the Murray’s property in Western Queensland and this was the link between the two families.

The Murray’s property at that time was called “The Barracks” but we do not know whether it was located in the Winton/Longreach area or over Hughenden way. At the time they purchased “Stamford Park” they were living on a small property named “Tranby” out from Winton in central Queensland.

Their daughter had married a Mr White and he, his wife and three children also lived on the property and Mr White virtually ran it. Mr and Mrs Murray were therefore able to leave every summer and go south to Victoria to avoid the searing heat.

When they first lived at “Daibyn” (Stamford Park) a Mr and Mrs Meehan and family, share farmers, ran a dairy on the property, using most of the grazing and part of the sheds (for milking etc.) and occupied one of the back wings of the old house.

At some stage they left and Mr Murray ran sheep on the property. Before he finally sold it in the 1930s, people (name unknown) used some of the sheds to milk cows which probably ran on the property.

April White

When Mr and Mrs Murray came south in the summer they usually brought with them their grand-daughter April White who was the same age as Barbara. Barbara spent a lot of the summer school holidays at “Daibyn” (Stamford Park) as company for April. They went mushrooming together in the early mornings and Mrs Murray would cook the mushrooms for their breakfast. The milk from the house cows was poured into large pans in the dairy and Barbara and April skimmed the set cream off the surface to eat on bread and jam. In the spring they rode their ponies together down to the creek to collect the wattle blossom. Sometimes one or both of April’s younger brothers were also there. The elder of these boys, Murray Tranby White, went down in HMAS Perth when it was sunk during World War II.

Mr and Mrs Murray came south only in the summer (driving their “Overland” car) and two years running they lent the use of the house (other than the wing occupied by the share farmers, Mr and Mrs Meehan and family) to our parents. One of these years we occupied the rooms in the other wing and two rooms in the main house for a time after the Murrays returned. We had the use of their horses and buggy and can remember driving the horse named “Bonnie” – a half Clydesdale – into Dandenong to meet our father who came up from Melbourne for weekends.

Getting about in the 1920s

If we decided to go up to Melbourne in the train for the day we would leave the buggy in the yard of a grocer in Lonsdale Street, Dandenong. “Bonnie” was left in the stable of the grocer’s delivery horse. On the return trip from Dandenong along Stud Road we had to get down from the buggy near the corner with Police Road because the hill was quite steep there in those days.

The other mode of travel is remembered by Jill very well. It consisted of a train to Oakleigh station, transferring to a wagonette drawn by two horses, the driver threw the newspapers into the houses as they went along. Some of his friends travelling on the box seat would “bet” with him whether or not the newspaper would land in a puddle.

On reaching the turn off to Forest Hill we transferred to a spring cart drawn by a pony which took passengers and the mail to Scoresby and possibly beyond. A spring cart is an open two-wheeled vehicle (no hood for rain) and once when the seat was not properly balanced the pony was nearly lifted off its feet.

Jill remembers riding horses with a member of the Hill family, Marie, who lived on the eastern side of Stud Road. Jill rode to Scoresby for the mail and to collect the meat from the butcher. Once she had almost reached Stamford Park when she realised that a roast of meat was missing. She rode back to find it lying beside the track near Scoresby. Because it was packed in a sugar bag, the roast fortunately came to no harm.

When Mr Murray ran sheep on the paddocks later in the twenties, he did not have a sheep dog and the little girls (Barbara and April) used to dread the sheep being drafted as Mr Murray worked the gate and the youngsters had to keep the sheep moving up the race.

We would shout and scream at them, getting choked in the dust if the weather had been dry but as we were small in stature, the sheep were not too impressed.

We (the little girls) did, however, enjoy riding behind the mob into Dandenong when some of the sheep were to be sold. A neighbour also rode behind the mob and Mr Murray followed along in his old “Overland” as he was quite elderly at that time.

Famous District Horses

We were told that many years before we stayed at Stamford Park the property was a well-known stud where they bred thoroughbred horses (it was said that one won a Melbourne Cup but we do not know whether this was a fact).

We were also told that a horse called “Trump Card” (not to be mixed with “The Trump” which ran in the 1930s and won the Cup in 1937) was stolen from Stamford Park and his stable was burnt down. This was to make it appear that he had been burnt in the fire but they knew this could not have been so as his iron shoes were not in the ashes.

On the corner of Stud and Ferntree Gully Roads (Scoresby) a Mr Harry Bamber and his brother trained horses in the 1920s. Whilst there he bought a mare “Riv” that he managed to keep through the Depression and from her he bred “Rivette” who won the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups in 1939.

The Bambers had sold the Scoresby property before “Rivette” was born.
Jill and Barbara Tunbridge