Wilsons Hut
Photograph courtesy of Anne Sedgley C/- Graeme Butler and DSE © 2004.
Location Gentle Annie Track, Nariel.
Known as Wilson’s Hut
History
Wilson's Hut near Bendoc is one of the few Alpine huts listed in the Victorian Heritage Register.
Alfred Wilson and his wife Irene, built this hut on Crown land when they arrived in the Bonang area in 1916. They planted fruit trees, pines and had a large vegetable garden and chooks, supplying produce to locals, miners and the Bendoc Hotel. Mrs. Wilson was known to transport the produce in a pram. She was also a very competent musician, and often gave music lessons to locals at the Bendoc Hotel.
Alfred had two horses and a tip dray, also doing carting and fencing in the district. He supplied wood in quarts ( 5’ x 5’ x 5’) to the nearby Victoria Star mine, founded five years before. In 1935 Alfred became ill and went to Sydney where he died. Irene stayed at the hut for another 6 months but could not continue alone. She returned to her family in Sydney and the hut was left empty. The Wilsons lived simply and were well known and liked in the area.
The hut is set in a grassy clearing fringed with some Monterey pines and native forest. Nearby are rabbit proofed vegetable garden enclosures (east of hut), remnant slab fences (north and east, one section on ground), plum trees (4 to east), orchard remnants (to north-west) and remnants of a concrete floor slab (3m x 2m) and corrugated iron clad chimney to the west.
Further to the west are stone footingsand burnt timbers of a former fodder store, within some post and wire fencing.
Construction: Wall frame: pole and sawn hardwood Floor: butted sawn hardwood Wall cladding: split vertical hardwood slabs.
Roof cladding: corrugated iron. The hut is of interest for the use of hand split slab vertical cladding and is one of a small number of huts identified in the Alpine area which have such cladding.
References
Victorian Alpine Huts Heritage Survey 2005, Graeme Butler and Associates.
