Ziebell’s farm was the largest in Westgarthtown (now known as Thomastown) and includes the oldest building remaining from the original German settlement.  Known as The Pines it was the home of Christian and Sophia Ziebell and their eight adult children.  The Ziebell family arrived in Victoria in 1850 following William Westgarth’s promotion of German emigration in Victoria.

Today the Westgarthtown/Thomastown precinct, of which the Lutheran cemetery is part, is an historical oasis within an urban precinct of 1950s-1970s housing.  Westgarthtown, a farming village established by German and Wendish settlers in 1850, originally consisted of 16 dairy farms, which provided milk for Melbourne's northern suburbs.  Five of the settlers' bluestone farmhouses survive, along with Australia's second oldest Lutheran church and the unique cemetery.  Bluestone was also used to build barns, stables, milking sheds, dry stone walls and paths.

The house was built between 1851 and 1856, and is a typical German farmhouse.  The 61cm thick walls are made of stones dug from surrounding paddocks.  Like other houses in the settlement the roof has a steep pitch which enabled a spacious upper level attic.  The walls on the east and south of the courtyard are rendered with lime mortar.  The location of the farm buildings close to the road is typical in a German village.

A bluestone schoolhouse opened for Westgarthtown’s children was 1 October 1855, and was known as the Neu Mecklenburg School after the region of origin of many of the settlers.  It operated until 1876, teaching German language and culture, religious instruction, English, mathematics, art and nature study.  The school building was demolished in 1951.

Descendants of Christian and Sophia Ziebell lived in the farmhouse until the 1970s.  Electricity, gas, water and sewerage were never connected.  The City of Whittlesea purchased the property in 1993 for the benefit of future generations.

The Lutheran Cemetery is one of Victoria’s rare church graveyards.  A dry-stone wall surrounds it, with Monterey Pines and Italian Cypresses that are over 100 years old.  The cemetery was laid out by October 1850.  The first burial of a baby, is said to have taken place in that year.  The oldest surviving memorial dates from 1867.

The cemetery is surrounded by a dry stone wall and lined with Monterey pines along its northern, western and eastern boundaries.  The pines and Italian cypresses along the main entrance from German Lane, are believed to date from the 1870s.  In the eastern and western walls are two recently restored box picket gates which were designed to provide pedestrian access but prevent the entry of cattle.

Although no burial register for the cemetery survives, over 175 burials are known to have taken place, with a probable total of around 200.  Each family was allocated one 30ft x 30ft plot.  A pencil sketch plan, drawn on the inside of a small door in the back of the old altar, shows the location of the original 16 family plots.

These numbered plots, which occupy the northern half of the cemetery, run eastward from the Maltzahn family graves in the north-west corner at Gardenia Road and German Lane, to the Graff plot in the north-east corner.  Separated by a path which connects the east and west pedestrian gates, the remaining plots stretch back to the Wuchatsch graves, near the western boundary wall.  Since the cemetery was first laid out, many other burials have taken place outside these 16 plots.

The graves are placed randomly within the family plots with all headstones facing east.  Several are surrounded by iron fences, common in the 19th Century.  Most of the graves have marble headstones, although there are also some in black granite and surprisingly, one small bluestone memorial and another made of redgum.  Many of the inscriptions are in German and some in both German and English.  Many of the memorials have recently been restored by the City of Whittlesea.

The cemetery is one of a small number of ethnic cemeteries in Victoria.  Although Westgarthtown's German settlers died far from their birth places in Europe, they were buried in familiar surroundings.  Their graves are within sight of the homes they built, the land they farmed and the church in which they worshipped.  The cemetery remains open for the burial of descendants of those original settlers and members of Thomastown's small Lutheran congregation.   The Thomastown Lutheran cemetery is an important reminder of the contribution made by the Lutheran pioneers in this area.  Burials are now restricted to members of the Lutheran Church or descendants of original settlers.

Thomastown Lutheran Church is the oldest Lutheran Church in Victoria, and the second oldest in Australia.  For over a century the Church was central to Westgarthtown’s activities.   

Before the church was built, religious services were conducted in homes and barns.  The church was built by professional stonemasons.  It was opened by Pastor Goethe on 17 November 1856.  It is a simple, functional building.  The only external decoration is around the windows and above the front door.  The fan windows above the door are a European design rarely seen in churches in Victoria.  The floor and ceilings are imported softwood.  As well as church services many major social events were held in this building over the years. 

 If you have family connections with Westgarthtown, avenues for further research would be:

Websites:
enquiries@westgarthtown.org.au 
http://www.heritage.vic.gov.au/page.asp?ID=87#ziebell
‘The Courier’, newspaper December 18th 1985, page 30
Westgarthtown – a History & Guide available from PO 95 Thomastown, Vic, 3074
From Hamburg to Hobsons Bay pages116-119