History
Above: The Merricks General Store, circa 1930, with "Westgate" to the left
A CENTURY OF CHANGE THE MERRICKS GENERAL STORE By Ilma Hackett, Balnarring and District Historical Society (BDHS)
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t has an old-world charm with its verandah posts covered by vines, the wooden façade and walls of corrugated tin. Today’s Merricks General Wine Store is a well-known, well-patronized restaurant on the corner of FrankstonFlinders Road and Thompsons Lane. Its present appearance makes a marked contrast to the plain, weatherboard-fronted building that was erected a century ago as a general store for the surrounding farming community. In fact, the store was the fulfilment of a dream for a young engaged couple. A dream takes shape The store was built by Jack Joyner and his sons for Jack’s only daughter Tilly and her fiancé, Alf Weston. Tilly, a dark-haired, lively lass had grown up on the family farm at Merricks. After he gave up farming her father, a shipwright by trade, supplemented his income by working on the boat ramps at Crib Point while her mother, the district’s postmistress from 1919, ran the local post office from the front veranda of their home, ‘Marlowe’, in Merricks.Tilly and
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her friends attended the dances held at the naval base and it was here that she met Petty Officer Albert Edward Weston, known to everyone as Alf. A Queenslander, Alf joined the navy when he was sixteen and served throughout World War I on various ships. After the war he was stationed at the Flinders Naval Depot as a plumbing instructor. Romance blossomed, the two became engaged and planned their future. Alf bought land in the township of Merricks with the idea of setting up a store which the couple would run after he quit the navy. With this in mind he handed his pay into Tilly’s keeping so a building could be erected on the easternmost lot. Merricks in the 1920s was predominantly a farming and grazing community. It had the post office, two small churches and, from 1921, a railway station on the Red Hill to Bittern line that linked with the Frankston line to Melbourne. The station was conveniently close to the store which at first sold farm produce. Then, in 1923 the post office was re-located to the newly opened general store with Mrs Joyner continuing as Post Mistress. continued next page...