VICPort & river
Fyansford
A river crossing that became a mill and cement town.
1837Police camp set up at the ford
WHAT STARTED IT
Fyansford grew near the junction of the Moorabool and Barwon rivers, where Captain Foster Fyans, Geelong’s first police magistrate, set up his police camp beside a ford in 1837. The crossing lay on one of the two routes from Geelong to Ballarat, so inns and a flour mill followed.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
A bridge replaced the ford in 1854, and in the late 1870s the Barwon Paper Mill was built on the old flour-mill water race near Buckley’s Falls. Cement became the mainstay: the Australian Portland Cement works opened in 1912, with an aerial ropeway bringing limestone from the Batesford quarries.
TURNING POINTS
1837Foster Fyans arrives as Geelong’s police magistrate and camps at the ford that takes his name.
1854A bridge over the Moorabool replaces the ford on the road to Ballarat and the Western District.
1878The Barwon Paper Mill’s manager’s house and six workers’ cottages are built beside the mill and its stone water race.
1900Monash and Anderson’s reinforced-concrete Monier bridge opens to traffic in February, the first of its kind in Victoria.
1912The Australian Portland Cement Company’s works are officially opened on 12 July, linked by aerial ropeway to the Batesford quarries.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A small locality on Geelong’s western edge, counted at 1,206 people in 2021. The 1900 Monier arch bridge, the paper mill buildings and the old hotels still mark the crossing.