This is a photo I took recently at Coopers Settlement, Bundoora Farm Park, in suburban Melbourne. I was the only visitor there, and the site hasn’t changed much since I last visited 10 years ago. The adjoining Bundoora Park Farm was busy with families feeding baby animals, but the dream of a heritage village seems to have faded away.
I am fascinated by current and former Heritage Villages in Australia, and what has happened to them now that they have fallen out of fashion. Darebin City Council is contemplating what to do with the Coopers Settlement site.
* The title for this post is a play on the title of the following article: Linda Young (2006) Villages that Never Were: The Museum Village as a Heritage Genre, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 12:4, 321-338, DOI: 10.1080/13527250600727059