BY JEM ANSHAW
In an area rich with history in the wool industry it should come as no surprise that there is a heritage listed woolshed in the hills of Cassilis.
Ballantyne Station was built in the 1850s with what is known as a floating shed design, one of only 10 ever built in Australia.
The design has no piers, instead uses ironbark logs laid on their side to help compensate for the movement of the ground underneath.
Cassilis and Merriwa have rich, but highly reactive black soils that expands and contracts with moisture, forcing anything in the soil upwards.
Current owner Richard Thompson shared Ballantyne is one of only two woolsheds built with this design that remain standing, with the other in Western Australia and as far as they are aware, it is no longer operational.
Ballantyne however still sees around five to five and a half thousand sheep through the 10 shearing stations each season.
In 2012 Richard and his wife Sam took the Golden Highway property over from his father Nick, who inherited it from his father who purchased it in 1949.
The family was not in farming at the time, but over the years farming re-emerged and there are currently sheep, cattle and crops throughout the year on the roughly six-thousand-acre property.
As you approach the woolshed, atop a hill some distance from the road, you can imagine the pens outside being filled with sheep as the sound of shearers work away inside.
Around 20 years ago the original roof needed replacing, and there is some damage from recent weather that is being attended to, but the rest of the structure is original and going strong.
Timber for the build was sourced from the old Cassilis Station, which was about 10 kilometres from Ballantyne, or on the property, with horse, pully and people power used to put the towering roof in place.
Richard speculates that it must have snowed in the area in the 1840s which made them want to add the steep peaked roof on top, so snow would slide off rather than pile up.
When discussing the work that goes into keeping the shed in what is truly great condition for something that is almost 200 years old, Richard shared it is just a few days tidying up before the shearers come in, unless there has been damage sustained generally by weather.
Richard and Sam love having their boys growing up on the land, giving them space to have friends around, to ride motorbikes and help with various jobs.
While they won’t force them to continue on with the legacy in the decades to come, it is their home and they love every part of it.
