Historic dry stone walls

Historic dry stone walls (DSW) include walls and other features built from dressed and undressed stones gathered or quarried from the land by early European settlers.

They are an expression of human interaction with the volcanic plains covering Victoria from the Western District to the west side of the Plenty River in the City of Whittlesea.

Today the walls are amongst the oldest European structures in Whittlesea. We have wonderful surviving examples of DSW built predominantly by German and Scottish settlers and others built by the Irish and English.

Road and property boundary walls are the most widespread but there are also internal paddock walls and distinctive cultivation paddock walls. Some were designed to keep stock in and others to keep stock out.

A lot of the stones used are round and dense, which are challenging to build with.

You can see stony rises in the City of Whittlesea where bedrock is exposed on the surface of the land. These are also significant.

The walls were built using a combination of large boulders and small stones. Some were split to balance the structure.

Here are two examples of the types of dry stone structures you can see across the City of Whittlesea.

Dry stone walls are only found in some areas of Victoria. The ones in the City of Whittlesea are different from those found in other areas.

The walls offer insights into farming practices and life on the Merri-Darebin Plains stony rises in the 19th century.

Some of our noteworthy dry stone walls can be found along roadways and on private properties. These include:

• east and west side of Epping Road
• the Boundary Road/Bodycoats Road/Summerhill Road area
• 80 Harvest Home Road
• around the Westgarthtown cemetery, Lutheran church and Ziebell’s Farm in Thomastown/Lalor
• the west side of Vearings Road
• a former boundary wall east of Epping Fruit and Vegetable Market
• ·various walls at 325D Cooper Street, Epping
• former Wollert township wall, halfway between Cooper Street and O’Herns Road, east of Merri Creek
• walls on east and west boundaries of Growling Frog Golf Course.

Dry stone walls are protected as heritage assets and places in the Victorian State Planning framework and in the City of Whittlesea Planning Scheme. They are significant for their cultural, social-technical, scientific, aesthetic, educational and landscape values.

Any action that alters or damages a dry stone wall requires a permit from the City of Whittlesea and in some cases from Heritage Victoria. This includes removing rocks from any part of the walls without a permit.

Damaging a historic dry stone wall attracts fines of up to $800.

If you see someone removing stones or damaging a dry stone wall, please contact us on 03 9217 2170 with as much information as possible. 

Dive deeper into the fascinating history of dry stone walls in the City of Whittlesea's 2020 study by David Moloney.(PDF, 10MB)