Looking at Sunny Grove when it was farmland in the 1940s.
Before the 1940s, Sunny Grove was largely farmland. In the photograph, the route of the present-day street can be seen running through the valley, surrounded by hills, with a track extending through the centre.
There is also a noticeable contrast between the eastern and western hillsides. The eastern side appears to have been cleared more recently, while the western side had already been planted in pine trees. Those pines have since grown to considerable height and now dominate much of the hillside, as seen in later photographs.
This was likely a reforestation effort. The Sinclair family ran a sawmill at the foot of the hills you can see in the background, near the intersection of Whitcher Grove and Moores Valley Road today.
Skerretts Creek doesn’t appear to be visible. Pre-housing, the creek meandered down the valley from one side to the other. For housing development purposes, the creek was entirely redirected to the eastern side of the valley. Since the 1960s, the creek flows through the rear of the properties on the odd numbered side of the street.
