A slice of history at Buninyong

 

If a picture paints a thousand words, Buninyong - Mount Helen Fire Brigade’s new mural paints the whole story.

 

To kick off the brigade’s community open day late last year, there was an official handover of the Merryweather room, including a mural depicting the story of the brigade’s original historic late 19th century English-built Merryweather fire engine.

The Merryweather stands proudly in its own dedicated space facing one of the main thoroughfares in town in the brigade’s new purpose-built station in Buninyong. Thanks to financial support from Community Bank Buninyong and inspiration from the Buninyong Historical Society, the mural is displayed behind the Merryweather and ensures that the story of this majestic piece of firefighting equipment lives on.

The idea for the mural came from a montage of a Buninyong streetscape in the local Community House. After much thought, the brigade decided that this would be a beautiful way to ensure that the story of the Merryweather was brought to life for future generations to enjoy.

The Merryweather was operated by 26 people. With only 12 brigade members at the time, firefighters often relied on the help of bystanders to assist pumping. The fold-out arms moved in a see-saw motion, manually pumped by a group of people – four on each side in three rotations – to get water running through the hose.

The Merryweather, which was used from 1882 to the mid-1930s, attended fires pulled by a horse or by firefighters if the horse was unavailable or uncooperative.

With no hydrants or town water, water supply in Buninyong at the time was not plentiful so keeping the water supply up was a challenge. The brigade relied on wells and dams scattered around the township.

Sovereign Hill staff contributed to the restoration of this beautiful old fire engine in the 1990s by hand crafting wheel parts.

 

Submitted by	Irene Keating