The Black House was originally a hunters hut but later may have been used by a caretaker for the water catchment area at Skerretts Creek.
The Black House was a hut located in the bush above Sunny Grove. The hut consisted of bunks, a kitchen, and a long drop toilet outside. Locals growing up in Sunny Grove called it the Black House because of the colour of the external cladding.
According to sources, it was a hunters hut that predates the street of Sunny Grove. Memories are fickle, but I believed it to be a trampers hut in the early 1970s. It also could also have been a ranger or a caretakers hut for a time that was associated with the water catchment at nearby Skerretts Creek. Regardless, one report states that a ranger guarded the catchment area to stop people from trespassing. Indeed, there are remnants of a barbed wire fence nearby as you venture up the creek – a testament to it being a restricted zone. Further, rangers were assigned to water catchment area in Sinclair Valley because of the risk of typhoid getting into the water supply for Wellington, so a ranger may have also been assigned to protect trespassers from entering this water catchment. Regardless, my memory of the area goes back to the 1970s and possibly even 1969. Back then, the fence still existed as a barrier, although one could pass through a large hole in the fence. There was also no ranger on patrol at this time (if there ever was) as the water catchment had been abandoned by the the early to mid 1960s.
The Black House was eventually damaged by fire in the mid 1970s and the site abandoned. The initial fuel for the fire was spilled kerosine from a lamp. A young child was rescued from the fire by a local who saw smoke coming out of the bush and headed toward the site.
The site is hard to find today as the track that led to it is overgrown. There are still debris at the site consisting of bricks, discarded tin, empty canisters of Potassium Chloride & poison pellets, bottles, plates, cutlery, etc. There is even a discarded kerosine lamp and could even be the very lamp that sparked the fire. A long drop site is visible some metres uphill from the main site.
