Mount Narryer or Mount Narryer Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a
cattle station
In Australia and New Zealand, a cattle station is a large farm ( station is equivalent to the American ranch), the main activity of which is the rearing of cattle. The owner of a cattle station is called a '' grazier''. The largest cattle stati ...
and had previously operated as a
sheep station
A sheep station is a large property ( station, the equivalent of a ranch) in Australia or New Zealand, whose main activity is the raising of sheep for their wool and/or meat. In Australia, sheep stations are usually in the south-east or sout ...
.
Description
It is located about north of
Yalgoo and north east of
Kalbarri in the
Mid West
The Mid West region is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is a sparsely populated region extending from the west coast of Western Australia, about north and south of its administrative centre of Geraldton and inland to east of W ...
region of
Western Australia
Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
. Mount Narryer occupies an area of leasehold and freehold with a carrying capacity of 11,000 sheep.
Situated along the
Murchison River, the property is broken into 18 paddocks of
mulga scrubland with one permanent spring, four dams and 40
bores equipped with windmills.
The station is named after
Mount Narryer, a large rocky outcrop.
Homestead
The current
homestead is listed on the
Register of the National Estate
The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. Phasing out began in 2003, when the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heri ...
as an historic place. The buildings are not typical of the local area, with the architect designed elaborate house and impressive
shearing shed
Shearing sheds (or wool sheds) are large sheds located on sheep stations to accommodate large scale sheep shearing activities.
In countries where large numbers of sheep are kept for wool, sometimes many thousands in a flock, shearing sheds a ...
both built from local stone. It was built when Charles Atkins, who also owned the
Palace Hotel in
Perth
Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
, owned the property.
The original homestead was built by Isaac Tyson near Mount Narryer itself. A second homestead was built in 1900 near the current house, and the ruins can still be seen from the present one.
[
]
History
Mount Narryer Station was established about 1880.[ By 1897 Isaac Tyson was the owner and was growing a small plot of ]cotton
Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...
near the homestead.
In 1909 the property had been acquired by the Aitkins brothers, who owned large tracts of land in the area. By 1925 the property occupied an area of approximately and had an estimated carrying capacity of 25,000 sheep. The old stock had been eliminated at it was stocked with about 9,000 ewes.
The McTaggart family have owned the property and been running cattle since 1980, but placed the property on the market in 2014 after suffering through drought
A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...
, the stress of feral
A feral (; ) animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in som ...
goats, wild dogs and finding staff.[ The property was placed on the market in 2014 for 1.5 million. The price included the five bedroom stone homestead, three bedroom cottage, three bedroom outcamp, five stand stone shearing shed, cattle yard, hangar, and shearers' quarters. A herd of approximately 200 ]droughtmaster
The Droughtmaster is an Australian breed of beef cattle. It was developed from about 1915 in North Queensland by crossing zebuine cattle with cattle of British origin, principally the Beef Shorthorn. It was the first Australian taurindicine hy ...
cattle were included in the sale.[
]
See also
*List of ranches and stations
This is a list of ranches and sheep and cattle stations, organized by continent. Most of these are notable either for the large geographic area which they cover, or for their historical or cultural importance.
Africa
* Obudu Cattle Ranch
* S ...
References
{{Stations of the Mid West Western Australia
Stations in the Mid West (Western Australia)
Shire of Murchison