Mansion among sites to open during heritage event

By Bree Harding

Nov 5, 2024

A bus tour will take a small group inside Dhurringile Mansion later this month during a series of tours now open to be booked during this year’s Heritage Open Days event. Photo by Kelly Carmody

While curious locals wait patiently for the Victorian Government to announce a date for its promised open day at Dhurringile Mansion, 25 people will get access to the historic building later this month on a bus tour from Shepparton that might be the last of its kind.

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The Greater Shepparton Heritage Advisory Committee and Greater Shepparton City Council have opened bookings for their 2024 Heritage Open Days event on Friday, November 29, and Saturday, November 30.

The event is inspired by Open House Melbourne, where hundreds of buildings are open to the public.

During the event in Greater Shepparton, more than 50 places of heritage and historical significance will be opened to the bus and walking tour ticket holders for free.

Dhurringile Mansion sits on the grounds of the former minimum security facility Dhurringile Prison, which is currently being decommissioned after closing permanently on August 31 this year.

It will be open to the bus tour on Friday, November 29.

The listing in the event booklet, which also sports an image of the mansion on its cover, says guests will get to tour the immense 68-room structure that was built by squatter William Winter as a private residence in the mid-1870s.

It was later used as a World War II internment camp (1939-1945) and a rural training farm (1947-1964) before being purchased by the government for the prison in 1965.

This tour is a rare opportunity to see beyond the gates and behind the walls while the site’s future remains undetermined.

No-one knows if it will ever be opened to the public again once sold or redeveloped.

Along with the Dhurringile Mansion tour listing, curious history buffs might opt to jump on an irrigation tour to see sites of significance, such as the ‘old pump site’ at Murchison and the 1890 Flume, or maybe a Dookie area tour to see Gowangardie Homestead, Chateau Dookie and Cashel Bank.

At Tallygaroopna, tourists can get an inside look at Fairley Downs, or they can head to St Germains for a Discovery Tour of Starritt’s Log Cabin and the Mooroopna North Schoolhouse.

More bus tours head in different directions. For those preferring to go it on foot, walking tours set off from Shepparton, Mooroopna, Tatura, Murchison, Toolamba and Dookie.

Other buildings of significance will be open for independent visiting across the two days.

∎ For more information or to book a spot on one of the tours, visit www.greatershepparton.com.au