AASV ViewBank Dig
This recent excavation at Viewbank Homestead (February 2013) was run by Alpha Archaeology, and involved AASV members and university students.
The trenches dug were on the tip site associated with the original 1840’s mansion of Viewbank, abandoned in the 1870s.
View Bank takes its name from a 77 ha property established by James Williamson in 1839-40. It then passed to a Scot, pastoralist Dr Robert Martin, who also acquired the adjacent Banyule property. He expanded the house and established extensive terraced gardens. After his death in 1874 the homestead was abandoned, and was demolished in the 1920s.
In the late 1990s the house site was excavated.
For more information about the history of Viewbank, try here.
Jodie with a beautiful find, a soup tureen. Unless it’s a chamber pot.
Hand-made bricks, and forgotten garden trees, Homestead at ViewBank
The Finds table
Embossed pottery
The trench begins to reveal what has been in the dark ground for a century and a half
AASV member Naomi uncovers a plate
Sieving the dirt
On the right, the terrace; on the left, the steps leading to where the front door once stood
Megan gives the day’s archaeologists a run-down on ViewBank history
After demolition in 1912, the Homestead at ViewBank was forgotten, the only sign being the ring of introduced trees
Day 3. Students attend the dig site, and the outlook to suburban Melbourne
View through the ViewBank House site, where once the View from the Bank was of bushland
Finds from Day Two
End of Day Two – Jodie Mitchell, Director of Alpha Archeaology, looks to have been working hard
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