Greenough Hamlet

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Located forty-one kilometres north of Dongara on the Brand Highway, the Greenough Hamlet is an impresive collection of 11 buildings of a kind found nowhere else in Australia, including school houses, a courthouse and police station, a cottage, churches, a presbytery and a convent.

The Hamlet is situated in an area known as the Front Flats, through which the Greenough River passes. The flats, themselves, are a unique landscape, most notably dotted with mis-shapen trees, their growth having been stunted by wind and salt. The sand hills to the west border the ocean and the ridge to the east marks the beginning of a larger area called the Back Flats. The Greenough Front Flats were surveyed by A.C. Gregory in 1857 and by the end of the following year had been fully occupied in small tillage lots.

Wheat farming began immediately with most of the hard work being done without the aid of machinery. Thus, the story of the Front Flats is one of ordinary men and women who undertook a hard pioneering life. Some of them were successful but many fell prey to rust attacking their crops, drought or the disastrous flood of 1888. However, they built a solid community which has hardly been touched by time. Because of the bravery, courage and forsight of these early pioneers, we now enjoy living in one of the richest farming and historical areas in Western Australia.

Printed visitor guides are available to take on a walk around the well preserved buildings, eleven of which are maintained by the National Trust. The Hamlet is open daily 9am - 5.00pm. Due to low visitor numbers during the summer months the Hamlet sometimes closes at 4.00pm. During winter months it is advisable to be no later than 4.00pm as the building start to get dark in the late afternoon.