Darling Downs history: Wungong Farm, the Halls and the Bruns family

Most of Darling Downs was once Wungong Farm, worked by a run of farming families from the 1840s. The farm cottage and homestead still stand on Bruns Drive.

How Darling Downs got its name

Landgate describes Darling Downs as an area of farmlet subdivision between Byford and Wungong, and records that the name comes from the nature of the country and its closeness to the Darling Range. It was first used as an estate name in 1977 and adopted as a suburb name on 1 May 1997.

Before the suburb

The Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale’s heritage survey describes the district as Aboriginal country before 1829 and records the Serpentine River as a movement corridor for the Whadjuk Noongar people. Farms at Wungong were surveyed in 1844.

The land beside Wungong Brook was first held by the brothers George and John Armstrong, who came out with Thomas Peel, and it was known as Woodstock. In 1847 Henry Hastings Hall bought it and, with his sons, built a pug-walled homestead.

How it grew

The property changed hands many times: to John Liddelow in 1860, C M Harwood in 1864, Samuel Richard Hammersley in 1867, and the Perth brewer David Harwood in 1889, who built a brick homestead. Albert Cockram bought it in 1897 and laid out a racecourse.

By 1906, under Charles Smith, Wungong Farm was among the largest dairies in the State. The first homestead burnt down in 1908, and Smith built its replacement in 1918. Oscar Bruns bought the farm in 1925, and his son John took it over in 1962. Edgar and Grace Masters ran another dairy on Thomas Road.

Housing from about 2000 broke up the old landholding, and Wungong Farm Cottage was subdivided from the homestead around that time.

Places that tell the story

Wungong Farm Cottage on Bruns Drive is a four room cottage by the brook, with parts dating from 1847, and is on the Shire’s Heritage List. Its neighbour, Wungong Farm Homestead on Bruns Drive, is a 1918 Californian bungalow with wraparound verandahs and a large Port Jackson fig. The remains of the Masters dairy, in face brick, stand on Thomas Road.

Darling Downs today

The 2021 Census counted 1,591 people in Darling Downs. Bruns Drive keeps the name of the family who farmed Wungong Farm from 1925.

More about Darling Downs

For what Darling Downs is like to live in now, read our Darling Downs suburb profile. If you own a property in Darling Downs and are thinking about selling, start with buyers for your property.

Sources

• Landgate: Perth and surrounds suburb names (archived 2022)
• Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale: Local Heritage Survey
• inHerit: Wungong Farm Cottage
• inHerit: Wungong Farm Homestead
• ABS 2021 Census QuickStats: Darling Downs

Top image: Wungong Farm and the Darling Scarp, seen from the South Western Railway, 1994. Photo: WoonganILB, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dates and names are drawn from the sources above. Where sources differ, we have said so or given an approximate date.

By Key Performance Real Estate, 338 Beaufort Street, Perth