Idyllic Mole Creek childhood just a memory
Photo by Mike Moores
Above: Carol Douglas at her dining table in the Mole Creek cottage where she grew up. Carol hopes to retire here and reconnect her family with the Lee farming history.
Photo supplied
view over the proposed abattoir property, with Carol’s cottage mid distance.
By Sharon Webb
IF MOLE Creek landowner Denis Durham is successful, in a year or so Carol Douglas will sit at her dining table and gaze across the paddocks to a green Colorbond abattoir. Another homeowner faced with an abattoir next door would put her house on the market and hotfoot it out of town. But Carol has a good reason for staying put. Close to retirement, she bought her cottage in 2018 because of its historical links to her family. The Den, the property now owned by the Durhams, was owned by the Lee family for almost 100 years. Now Carol wants her two adult children and grandsons Percy and Teddy to be able to stand on the land of their ancestors. It makes no difference to Carol that most of The Den is now owned by the Durhams. Comfortably encircled by Durham land, Carol feels as if she is sitting in a patch of family history. Married to Launceston developer Mort Douglas, known for Morty’s Food Court, Carol manages Launceston properties. She plans to retire soon and spend time at Mole Creek, encouraging family members to stay and absorb the Lee family history. ‘To be here is just magical for me. In the last 10 years I would dream about it,’ Carol said. ‘It was never on the open market and it took patient negotiation over many months to buy it from Darlene Mansell, the former owner. ‘What matters is to stand on the land again and have a sense of belonging. I can see the mountains and hear the creek.’ Carol’s sense of belonging comes from growing up in the cottage until she was 12, when her parents Ron and Doris Lee moved to Launceston for work. ‘It was built in 1900 and when my parents arrived there with a baby, sheep had been through it and hay stored there. ‘I remember mum saying there was one bed, a kitchen table and apple crates to sit on,’ Carol said. ‘They pumped water from Mole Creek for a water supply, no fridge but a meat safe. Dad worked at The Den on the farm and on the forestry. ‘As a child it was amazing. I was never hungry or cold. I had paddocks to play in, trees to climb and an old pear tree swing Dad made from binding twine and a sugar sack stuffed with straw. I was so happy, and that never left me.’ As a mature woman, Carol says she ‘felt a calling and a longing’ to be at the cottage.
‘In the end I made an offer that probably was more than the property was worth. That was my best shot and Darlene accepted. ‘I bought it sight unseen.’ Carol’s great grandfather George Lee from Mole Creek and his wife Alice Appleby from Exton bought The Den in 1896 as a place to farm and bring up their 13 children. The Lee family finally sold in 1989 when The Den’s last custodian, Lewis Lee, died in 1989. The property eventually was owned by TV vet Dr Harry, from whom the Durhams bought it. Two Denis Durhams, senior and junior, live in Sydney and by all accounts take turns to visit The Den monthly. Their planning application in to the Meander Valley Council is to establish an abattoir just across the creek, 300m from Carol’s house.
Denis Durham Junior wants to keep the operation small, operating a couple of days a week to supply a boutique butchery he plans for Mole Creek township. His words are ‘small impact’. The butchery plan has some locals puzzled. They think the demand won’t be there. Mr Durham says he wants to process only his animals, to remove travel stress from their deaths. Other locals are supportive of a new Mole Creek business, said Carol, ‘but if you ask them if they’d be happy for an abattoir to be over their back fence it’s a different question’. One elderly Den neighbour who has lived in her home for 60 years will look out straight at the abattoir, Carol said. ‘Denis said ‘boutique’ but he’s a driven businessman so I believe it will increase in size. ‘I understand the paddock to plate concept but I believe its possible the meat will end up in Sydney or China rather than a local butcher shop.’ The elephant in the room is the effect of an abattoir on Mole Creek’s karst landscape. The big unknown in waste disposal is underground. Unmapped streams flowing who knows where through limestone caverns, carrying waste that pops up – who knows where?
And the problem of people buying rural Tasmanian properties only to find the effects of neighbouring farms on their lifestyles unacceptable is a growing one, prompting the government to develop a website to better inform potential rural buyers. Carol Douglas has strong family ties to Mole Creek. Apart from her history, her eldest brother Ronnie still lives there and with the help of Uncle Lewis’ grandson, Grant Evans, she has a longterm renovation happening at her cottage. These days the Lee family name is most famous for its links to Lee’s Paddocks, of which Carol’s relatives Dympna (Uncle Lewis’ daughter) and Lloyd Evans are part owners.
The Lees are spread Australiawide and in 2014 around 220 descendants of George and Idyllic Mole Creek childhood just a memory Alice Lee gathered at the Mole Creek Memorial Hall for a reunion. One activity was to visit Den Plains, where Carol’s grandparents once lived in a cottage. Denis Durham facilitated the convoy of cars onto his property, kindly grading the road in preparation, and family members were photographed in front of the cottage’s remaining chimney. It was a last opportunity because the chimney washed away in the 2016 floods. ‘Since then we’ve lost a lot of those cousins and the visit meant a lot to them,’ Carol said. ‘Denis has been a good neighbour but this abattoir is not what I expected.’
