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Friday, 30 September 2022

New Belmont Museum Interactive Exhibit

In a new interactive experience, visitors to Belmont Museum will have the opportunity to contribute to an animated reproduction of life at the time Great Eastern Highway was built.

As part of the Highway to History exhibit, visitors can colour in a convict and other historical characters, and then watch them come to life as they build this famous highway. Afterwards, visitors can discover the Hampton’s Cheeses exhibit to see a real-life artefact from the original Great Eastern Highway.

In August 2012, several large wooden discs were discovered under Great Eastern Highway in the City Belmont. These jarrah rounds, known as Hampton’s Cheeses, became a discovery with local and State-wide significance after being covered in debris and crumbling away for decades in darkness. 

The wooden discs are the last known remnants of the 19th century convict-built road and were named ‘Hampton’s Cheeses’ because of their round cheese-like shape and their association with the historical era of Governor Hampton.

It was believed that convicts working in the 1860s had cut down 300-year-old jarrah trees to create the important road that would become Great Eastern Highway, guiding people from Perth to Guildford and beyond. It followed a well-worn Aboriginal track.

City of Belmont Mayor Phil Marks said the ongoing restoration of the Hampton’s Cheeses demonstrated the City’s commitment to preserving its history and the new interactive hands-on experience presents a novel way for visitors of all ages to learn about how Great Eastern Highway was originally built.