A Colac district community will celebrate its heritage this weekend.
Cressy, once a growing township and now a farming community, will celebrate its 171 years with a community day at the Cressy Historical Centre on Sunday.
Children’s games of years gone by, a cemetery walk and stories of the town’s past will form part of the celebrations, which the Cressy and District History Group is organising.
Group secretary Joanne Bromhead said Cressy was a thriving rural township in the early 1900s, complete with bakery, butcher, dress maker, hotel and blacksmiths.
She said the closure of a railway from Colac to Ballarat in the 1950s made the town less accessible and contributed to its population dwindling.
“But the shops were still going for quite a long time, until the ‘80s,” Ms Bromhead said.
“When I moved in, in ’89, there was a post office, petrol station and hotel. There is nothing now, no shop, no post office and the hotel closed,” she said.
“It was a fairly important place right through until the ‘80s.”

HERITAGE: Joanne Bromhead, left, and Dorothy Warrender are preparing for Cressy’s community day on Sunday.

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