Last weekend nearly 1000 people flocked to Beaufort to visit Mawallok, one of Australia’s most historically important and beautiful gardens. Mawallok was designed by Australia’s 19th century master landscaper William Guilfoyle. With its marvellous views of distant Mount Cole, the garden is unmistakably Australian and of enormous cultural and historical significance.
Consistent sympathetic ownership has ensured that the garden’s design and planting are of the highest possible quality so that the landscape remains faithful to Guilfoyle’s initial concept.
Like many visitors, we were appalled to learn that this cultural icon is to be desecrated by the erection of numerous wind turbines. The scale and siting of the turbines will destroy Guilfoyle’s design and spoil a rare example of a harmonious combination of the natural and the introduced. While we recognise the need to explore alternative energy sources, it seems unnecessary to destroy a national cultural jewel, particularly as numerous other sites are equally suited to the purposes of wind power generation.
Tamie Fraser, president, and Neil Robertson, chief executive, Australia’s Open Garden Scheme, New Gisborne
23 October 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/10/23/save-a-vision/