A little history of an old Canberra homestead called "Cranleigh" and its location today...
Video today from jgm64productions
"Author JG Montgomery goes for a wander through the little known Cranleigh site in Latham, ACT, once the home of a significant Australian military figure."
World War One Australian Lieutenant General James Gordon Legge CB, CMG (15 August 1863 – 18 September 1947) (Wikipedia bio)
World War One Australian Lieutenant General James Gordon Legge CB, CMG (15 August 1863 – 18 September 1947) (Wikipedia bio)
From Wikipedia:
Cranleigh
By 1923 cottages for a manager and workmen were being built at Cranleigh, farm machinery including a tractor had been purchased and a concrete weir across the Ginninderra Creek was under construction. The main house was styled from houses he had seen in India early in his military career. In its external appearance the house was square with a flat roof resembling a fort or block house, built of concrete blocks moulded on site with sand from Ginninderra Creek.
There was a central verandah courtyard surrounded by ten rooms with each room having an entrance to the courtyard. Due to his early retirement, Legge was denied a pension, but he was able to obtain money from the Soldier Settlement Scheme to buy a lease on a 400 acres (160 ha) farm north of the Weetangera farm in the Australian Capital Territory.
He called it "Cranleigh" after his school in England and his former home in Sydney, and he raised pigs and horses, and grew potatoes. Many of the local farmers thought him eccentric, as the area is best known as sheep country. The farm failed for various reasons, including that a proposed Canberra-Yass railway line passing the farm was not built; and, there was a drought from 1937-37.
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