Charleston's Hut
Photos on this page by O Moon 2022, but the introductory one is of the first hut on this site.
Known as Charlestons Hut, Vale Hut or Vale of Belvoir Hut
Location is found about 1 kilometre west of Yackandandah hut, on the Vale of Belvoir pastoral lease (just outside the NP, so on a private lease). Just west of the Cradle Mountain TO, take the Lake Lea Road north, and then left on the VDL Road. The track is often very wet, plus being very rough and steep, so it is best to walk, at least for the last kilometre. Please make a request if you wish to stay.
History
Back in 1903, the Vale south of Lake Lea was planted with wheat by the Davies family from Victoria whose aim was to grow it in the Canadian style. After a winter when snow piled up to roof level in their hut, they decided it wasn't such a good idea. You can still see the ploughed appearance on the flats south of the lake a century later.
The area was acquired by George Williams from Narrawa (near Wilmot) the next year, and it has remained in his family ever since. The Williams family brought cattle up to the Vale of Belvoir annually from their main landholdings at Wilmot, some 50 km away.
During the early 1900s, a dairy and small cheese ‘factory’ were established and a hut built to support the workers. This operation continued until the mid‐ to late 1930s and some evidence of the dairy and cheese factory still remain, close to the site of the existing hut. During the winter months, members of the Williams family would return to the Vale of Belvoir to snare possums and wallaby for the lucrative European and U.S. fur trade, establishing small snarer's huts to survive the extreme weather conditions.
The Charleston brothers, Jim and Kevin, began running cattle at the Vale around the early 1960’s alongside the Williams family. Kevin married Wendy Williams, and he and Jim gradually took over the long‐term public land leases and purchased the freehold blocks. The Charleston brothers worked closely with the Williams family, passing down family knowledge of the area, its habitats, and the lessons learnt of managing the stock and mosaic burning to maintain the grasslands in good condition.
The original hut burnt down at some time during 1960s and another two‐room hut was built by the Charleston brothers and the local community around 1975 as shown in this photograph. Over the following several years, they also built the traditional split‐timber stables and timber stockyards, and extended the hut.
Vehicle access to the area was via a notoriously boggy track from Leary’s Corner that was often impassable, with the Charleston family riding horses or walking the remaining distance in to their hut. The process of taking cattle into the Vale of Belvoir was often a community‐oriented one, with 100 – 300 cattle being walked in over two days from Erriba using stock horses, usually late in December or early January. The cattle were mustered up again over a period of about a week in May or June and returned home again.
Developments in the Vale of Belvoir began in the mid‐1980s, with the construction of the West Coast electricity transmission line in around 1983 and the Cradle Mountain Link Road in 1985, both of which dissect the valley from east to west. Whilst these developments greatly improved access into the area and to the west coast, the aesthetic and environmental values of the Vale of Belvoir were severely impacted. An intention by the Tasmanian Government to end the grazing leases over public lands in the Vale of Belvoir in the 1980s resulted in strong community opposition
The second hut on site and nearby barn (as shown in the photos below), is clearly of much older vintage than the main hut. At one stage, Williams even had a cheese factory there with pigs eating the slops. Apparently a thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) was observed lining up at the troughs after the pigs for its share. According to Nic Haygarth in View from the Cradle, the thylacine took a 'liking' to Williams. So he tethered it & took it to his Narrawa property where it accidentally hanged itself on the rope.
There was another hut in the forest on the peninsula on the west side of Lake Lea but it was burnt down in the 1990s.
Construction
References
Haygarth, Nic in “View from the Cradle”.
