Omeo has two Courthouses. We call them the "old" and "new" 1858 and 1893.Omeo was at its peak when the new Court
came into service in 1893, for years complaints were being made that the old Court was too small.
The old Court is most likely the most important heritage building in East Gippsland.
This Court was built in 1858 but took a little while to finish (1861). The issue was with the supply of bricks and the eventual use
of locally made ones. The local bricks were probably fired in a wood fuelled kiln and the heat wasnt very even resulting in some
bricks being very soft.
The building was the Omeo Court until 1893 when the "new" Court took over and then it was used variously as a library, a
halfway house, hayshed and after the 1939 Black Friday fires it housed two families and one of them was running the towns
chemist from here.
It became a part of the Historic Park in 1972 when that was created by the Shire of Omeo and has
displayed some of our local history collection. Here, in 2006 Society members are discussing the
Chinese display. Note the crack in wall visible in the X of the skis on the rear wall. This and others
became a threat to the buildings integrity prior to the conservation work that began in 2020.
2020 and conservation work has just begun. The vertical cracks have appeared since the early 2000,s and steadily gotten
worse. You can see it clearly on the corner of building closest in this image The soft brick problem is starting to show up,
you can see the holes at bottom where some were found, once most of that external render was removed it became very clear.
The lateral cuts have benn put in to find the extent of the cracking.
Early 2022 and the foundations / brickwork have been done, new render outside and new hard plastering inside.
The final external paint colour is well underway. Interior colours will be a salmon pink with dark brown trims.
The rear two rooms of the Court are where the magistrates and family lived.
The other rear room
The soft bricks also allow moisture through with a lot of subfloor work required.
some of the soft bricks, you can see how they have melted when exposed to rainand the way only a part of the brick
might be affected. Every crack found in the building has its start point at one of these soft bricks.
2023 and the major works are complete, internal painting not finished but the interior painting will be completed in the summer of 2023/24.