Glencoe Woolshed

Built for the golden fleece

When the Glencoe Woolshed opened in 1863, the occasion warranted a gala ball for 200 guests — a measure of how much wool mattered here. Built for Edward and Robert Leake, the Tasmanian-born brothers who established Glencoe Station in the 1840s, the great stone shed held 36 shearing stands beneath hand-adzed arches of blackwood timber.

What makes Glencoe nationally significant is what never happened to it: the shed was never converted to machine shearing. Every fleece that crossed its boards was taken with blade shears, and at the operation's height around 53,000 sheep were shorn in a season — up to 2,000 a day, with a small army of extra hands employed for the cut.

Donated to the National Trust in 1976, the woolshed is now preserved as a museum between Millicent and Mount Gambier, its interior much as the shearers left it. It pairs well with the wool-industry displays at The Sheep's Back museum in Naracoorte for a full picture of the industry that built the South East, and it is an easy detour on any drive through the Millicent district.