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The Kangaroo Ground Tower of
Remembrance stands in
the Eltham War Memorial Park, Yarra Glen Road, and honours those who
died in World Wars 1 and 11, also in the conflicts in Korea, Borneo,
Malaya and Vietnam.
The 12 metre high memorial soars
237 metres above
sea level on Garden Hill, one of the highest locations in the Yarra
Valley. There are 53 steps and four long ladders leading up to
the lookout atop the Tower of Remembrance. A 360° panorama view
covers Diamond Valley, Melbourne city and surrounds, the Kinglake
escarpment, the mountains beyond Healesville, the Dandenong Ranges,
Port Phillip Bay, the You Yangs and Mt Macedon. Mr Andrew Ross,
then headmaster of the Kangaroo Grounds School is said to have recorded
in his diary ‘that having climbed the hill in 1852, and equipped with a
powerful telescope observed the arrival in Port Philip of the
steam-powered Great Britain direct from England.’
The area was originally known as
Garden Hill, a
name derived from a patch of ground cultivated by two shepherds, Brown
and Draper before the influx of Scottish settlers in 1849. The
site upon which the tower stands was once local picnic grounds and a
place at which the community gathered in celebration.
Following World War One, local
residents purchased
two acres of land at Garden Hill, and at its highest point, built a
cairn on which they mounted a flagpole.
At a social gathering at the home
of Cr Basil
Yaldwin Hall, son of the Director of the National Gallery, it was
suggested a tower be built in the style of the old English and Scottish
watchtowers. This would reflect the strong Scottish influence of
Kangaroo Ground's first European settlers from the 1840s.
In 1920 a public committee was
formed to establish
a Memorial to which the public gave most generously. Architects
Arthur Stephenson and Percy Meldrum designed the tower without charge,
from a sketch by the artist Harold Herbert. The Builder was
George Rousell of Mordialloc and he used stone donated by Professor
William and Dr Ethel Osborne from their nearby property Kangaroo Hall.
The tower was reinforced with concrete and faced with sandstone
rubble and concrete quoins and dressings.
The 1914-1918 Honour Plaque was
unveiled on
Armistice Day, November 11, 1926, by His Excellency the
Governor-General, Lord Stonehaven. There are over 100 residents
from the Shire of Eltham present. There are 7 Windmill Palms,
some as old as sixty years, planted around the perimeter of the
memorial representing the six Australian states and one to represent
the territories.
From 1948 the tower also became a
fire-spotters
lookout although a cabin for their protection was not built until
1974. The approach of the horrific bushfires of 2009 was observed
from the tower and in November/December of that year a fire watch hut
was installed
In 2001 the Governor of Victoria,
John Landy
dedicated further names of those who died in conflicts of Korea,
Borneo, Malaya and Vietnam.
There are lists of names of those
who are known to
have enlisted in the Great War from the then Shire of Eltham. The
names have been sourced from a variety of sources and the Shire of
Nillumbik asks that if you have any corrections to make contact 9433
3111
Source:
Nillumbick Now and Then, Marguerite
Marshall, MPrint Publications, 2008. Page 122
Kangaroo Ground: The Highland Taken, Mick
Woiwod, Tarcoola Press 1994. Pages 199-203
Also information taken from several plaques around
the Memorial park.
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