Hazelvale and Tingledale Group Settlements

Extracts from: Hazelvale's Group Settlement History
written material provided with thanks by Society Member
Dawn Martin

Photos unless stated from the Society's collection. Curator photos: Don Burton.

 Tap image thumbnail for enlargement.

Settlement at Hazelvale (originally called Hazelwood) commenced in 1927 as part of the reactivated and modified Group Settlement Scheme.

Hazelvale (Groups 138 and 139) was the most remote group settlement established in the Denmark district.

In 1927 the Nornalup and Walpole townships did not exist and there were were no farms on the western side of the Frankland River and the bridge crossing the river was not built until 1933.

Nearby, the Group 116 Tingledale Settlement which had started three years earlier (1924) had a School and small store.

Group 116 was just south of Group 138. Their group camp was on the south side of the present Valley of the Giants Road between the Hazelvale and Dingo Flat Roads intersections with the Valley of the Giants Road. Shacks were two roomed galvanised tin sheds, some with a dirt floor. The men worked as a gang clearing farmland before a ballot was held to allocate the prepared blocks.

Marks Siding was the nearest railway siding for cream despatch, heavy freight and bags of superphosphate (rail arrived at Nornalup in 1929).

Roads/tracks were rough dirt, a winding route where the country was somewhat drier and the gradient less steep for horses.

Even so tracks were often impassable, boggy after rain. These early tracks, defining Locations’ boundaries, often were a different route to the straightened roads of today, as is evident in the early maps which appear later in this document.

On arrival the Hazelvale Settlers moved into a two-roomed shack (with an internal wood stove) already built as part of the Scheme. The shack was on their own property so the family was able to start straight away on clearing their own farm. Under the direction and supervision of a foreman neighbours helped each other develop the first five acres.

This was a different approach to earlier settlements, such as Tingledale, which saw the creation of group camps and labour gangs that cleared the first 25 acres on each block. Under both systems, some Settlers left within a short period.

In 1930 the Nornalup [later Walpole Land Settlement Scheme: following articles in this series] Land Settlement Scheme for unemployed Western Australian married men started on the western side of the Frankland River. The Hazelvale farmers now had neighbours across the river. A bridge was built in 1933 and gave road access to the new township of Walpole.

In the years that followed, some descendants of the Hazelvale and Tingledale settlers purchased North Walpole holdings and became successful farmers there.