This is the now demolished Willowdale in Cranbourne. The following information about Willowdale was provided to the Casey Cardinia Libraries Archive by Val Bourke (nee Glen) in 2004. (1)
The Glen family bought the Close property from William Close in 1938. There were around 260 acres and another 160 acres with a two storey brick house. This is where the Amstel Gold Course (2) is located on Cranbourne Frankston Road. Part of this acreage, without the house, was over the road on the side where St Peters School Catholic School is today.
The Close Property, called Willowdale was a double story brick home, still there in the late 1960s. It is believed that the same builder had constructed Willowdale, Balla Balla and Harewood; all local homes and Willowdale is the only one not here today. It was a rectangle Georgian design in cream brick with a slate roof. The bricks are believed to have been made on the property. Its front door was surrounded in lead light glass - described as being a 'lovely blue' There was a main hallway and stairs to the second level. On the first level, the drawing room was on the right hand side and the two bedrooms on the left hand side. The hallway went through at the back to a meals and kitchen area. There was one chimney, which went through the downstairs bedrooms and then to upstairs.
There was a picket fence at the front of the house, later replaced by wire. Two Norfolk pines stood on the left hand side of the house.
Mrs Bourke's sister, Phyllis Kirkham, also supplied some information on the Glen family. The family, Edward and Philomena Glen and children, moved from Woodside to Lyndhurst onto a property on the corner of Dandenong-Hastings Road and Thompsons Road on the Dandenong side closest to Cranbourne, in 1925. They then took up a farm opposite the Hallam Hotel on the Highway. They then moved back to Lyndhurst and finally to Willowdale. Their mother died when Phyllis was serving in the Air Force as an eighteen year old during the Second World War. All the children had to help on the farm at Willowdale and they worked very hard. The name was changed to Willowglen and then Willowlodge by the Glen family.
At Willowglen the Glens farmed Australian Illawarra Shorthorn cattle and showed them under the name Willowlodge. (3)
1. Elizabeth (1869; married Edwin Lambert in 1904 and died in 1947)
2. Frederick John (1871; married Emma Taylor in 1905 and died in 1943)
3. Margaret (1873; married George Archibald McLellan in 1905 and died in 1958)
4. Ellen (1876; married John Foster James Ridgway and died in 1953)
5. William James (1879; married Jeannie Anderson in 1906 and died in 1945)
6. Louisa Jane (1881-1887)
7. Nicholas John (1884-1886)
8. Annie Florence (1886; married William Thereford Thorne in 1911 and died in 1970) (5)
The Cranbourne Rate books show that in 1863 (the first year of the Rate books that we have) John Close is listed as owning 391 acres in the Parish of Lyndhurst. Later in the 1860s a Mary Close had 316 acres and James Close 75 acres (391 acres in total). John Close died in Cranbourne in 1866, at the age of only 37, and he left land to his brothers James and Thomas and some assets to his wife Mary. John, James and Thomas (died 1884, aged 45) were the sons of Thomas Close and Margaret Gordon. (7)
