Dingup House

Thomas and Maria Giblett married in 1868 and moved to Dingup. The land had been purchased for Thomas the oldest son of the Giblett family who had settled in the Balbarrup area in 1861. The first section of Dingup House was built in 1870. Maria and Thomas went on to have nine children. Thomas was very active in the community organizing the building of Dingup Church (1897) which was also used as a school. The schoolteacher employed for the local children boarded at Dingup House. Soon after the completion of the church Thomas was killed in an accident while clearing land on their farm. The house was expanded over time by the Giblett family and then renovated by successive owners including the Dousts, Claudine Bennett and the 2004 owners Kathy and David Savage. For a number of years the house has been run as a Bed and Breakfast place. Dingup House is a single storey ‘L’ shaped building that reflects the different eras in which it developed. Dingup House was built in four stages from 1870 to 1896 eventually consisting of 18 rooms. Construction of the main house is of fired mud bricks with mud mortar. The bricks were made on the property. The walls are built on the footings of large stoned laid directly on the ground without a damp course. The brickwork is laid in Flemish Bond –double bricks laid adjacent to each other with every second brick laid sideways. Floorboards and structural timber are pit sawn jarrah and the roof is corrugated iron. (Originally split shingles) The front of the house is rendered externally with cement while the rear remains unrendered. All internal walls are rendered with mud. Some rooms are wallpapered – the original wallpaper can still be seen in the lounge room. The large barn and shearing shed are built from split timber slabs with corrugated iron roofs. (Originally the roofs were split shingle.) Some of the trees and plants were planted by the original family or are of particular botanical interest.