Community
27 September, 2024
Stonemason descendent arrives
BRICKLAYER Cain Chandley moved to Camperdown this week, around 185 years after a distant relative became the first Chandley to move to Camperdown as a stonemason.
Mr Chandley, with the support of his wife Annie and their son Clay, began their move to Camperdown on Monday.
The couple has lived in Simpson for around five years after originally moving to the region from Geelong.
“We fell in love with Camperdown, and were around here more and more,” Mrs Chandley said.
“We were pretty constantly going backward and forwards from Simpson to Camperdown, and the perfect house popped up on the market.
“Cain works across the whole region, so we thought it was the perfect opportunity to live in a town central to the area.”
The move to Camperdown has a sense of history repeating itself as Mr Chandley is a descendent of the late Henry Chandley, a prominent stonemason who had moved to Camperdown from England circa 1840.
“I didn’t know there was a bricklayer in the family until around 10 years ago,” he said.
“I came to the region while working for a company from Geelong, as we were working on the Camperdown and Terang schools, and when I came down my dad said he thinks my great-great-great-great grandfather had worked on the Camperdown Clocktower.
“We later learned he had likely died before the clocktower was erected, but we’ve recently found a book which mentions him quite a few times.
“It worked out strange because I was already in the trade.”
The family are only at the beginning of their journey attempting to piece together the intricate history of the family connection.
According to a death notice published in the Camperdown Chronicle on March 19, 1884, Henry Chandley had died on March 15, 1884, aged 72.
According to a 1934 edition of the Camperdown Chronicle, Henry Chandley had also, at least for a time, resided in a bluestone building on Manifold Street.
The death notice for his wife, Margaret, who died two years later in 1886, she said had died in Purrumbete South where the couple had raised at least four children; Josiah, Julia, William Henry, and Helen.
“We only have a baseline knowledge of it but we’re hoping to do a bit more research,” Mr Chandley said.
“We believe it was around 1840 he had moved to Camperdown and begun his work as a stonemason, primarily working with bluestone.
“We think he died before the 1900s but we’ve been told he worked on the Darlington Bridge and Elephant Bridge Hotel.
“We think he probably worked on a lot of the bluestone buildings across the area, such as Terang, because there were not too many doing that sort of stuff.”
Mr Chandley said the Chandleys had grown to become a large family, with most scattered today throughout Melbourne and Geelong.
He said he found it interesting he, as the only other bricklayer in the family, had found his way home to Camperdown.
“We’re the only ones who have come back, so it’s kind of weird,” he said.
Mr Chandley said, knowing the complexities of bricklaying and stonemasonry, he admired the quality of the craftsmanship in the historic buildings across Camperdown and the wider region – an untold number of which Henry Chandley may have worked on.
“They couldn’t do it these days,” he said.
“Anyone would struggle to build things like that these days – the craftsmanship is amazing.
“So much of the bluestone would have been hand carved.”
Mr Chandley said it was an interesting feeling knowing his business, Chandley Bricklaying, would make Camperdown home some 185 years after Henry Chandley had done just the same.
“It’s wonderful,” he said.
“I am primarily working on brick houses, including working on chimneys, pizza ovens and fire places, retaining walls, fences and sand and cement render.
“I want to get back into restoration work - it’s more an artform that I enjoy and have an eye for.
“It probably isn’t too much different than what he has done.”
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