Lavington & District Family History Society Inc.

QUICK’S HILL By Peter Quick.

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 Quick’s Hill, as it has become known, was originally a part of the Murray Valley Vineyard, 640 acres (259 ha) with 150 acres (61 ha) under vine, which was established about 1858 by a company of which James Fallon was a director. Around 1861 Fallon acquired the vineyard and soon became a successful vigneron and wine merchant (and Albury’s first mayor).

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 Fallon died in 1886 and, as he had no children, he left his estate to his brother Patrick who carried on the vineyard; destroyed by phylloxera, it was replanted and wine was made there by the Fallon family until the 1930s when the phylloxera returned and wiped out the vines permanently.

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 According to my father, Arnold Quick, the land was sold by the Fallon family and was controlled by a syndicate, which had cut the land up into "farmlets" of about 10 to 20 acres each.  But the original homestead and about 60 acres which surrounded it were sold intact. And this is what Mr. Quick bought, in 1948.

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 For the first few years the land was farmed, initially with wheat, then with dairy cows with the Murra-Vale Jersey Stud, which, despite the name, was a milk-producing venture. With the end of Murra-Vale, the sub-division of the land began, in 1956. It wasn't really that much of a financial gamble for Mr Quick, because he did all the road-making himself with his own machinery, he essentially didn’t employ any labour.

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 He once told me that he was selling the blocks even before he had finished making the roads.

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 The other enterprise associated with the land on Quick’s Hill was a motor vehicle business called Modern Motors at the foot of the hill, facing the Hume Highway. The business initially entailed the sale of second-hand cars as well as repairs and petrol/lubricants etc but later the second-hand car element was replaced by a café and small grocery shop. The building still exists today.

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 Unfortunately, following Mr Quick’s death in 1984, the old homestead on top of the Hill and the remaining parcel of land around it was sold and the new owner decided to demolish the house to build a more modern one. In the event, after demolishing the house and all elements of the garden including every tree, he decided not to build a new house and the land was subsequently re-sold as a vacant block. The house that stands on the site now was built by another person. A piece of Albury’s history was by this process lost forever.

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Print Publication Details: WP Driscoll, Fallon, James Thomas(1823-1886)

Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol.4 Melbourne University Press, 1972, p 151

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Taken in 1949, from front of the house on Highview Cres, but orientation not clear.

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Road construction on Quick’s Hill around 1965; Arnold Quick is driving the grader.

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 A very early photo of Modern Motors, at foot of Quick’s Hill, on Hume Highway, mid 1950s.

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Front of house on Quick’s Hill, taken from Highview Cres, date unknown, circa 1965.