February 15th, 2025Walks of the Central Highlands
With Eve Lamb
My sturdy walking companion, Paddy H, and I had been planning to complete Daylesford’s famed 15km Three Lost Children Walk for this series, having trekked the first half for the last installment.
However, with weekend temperatures nudging 40 degrees we decided to delay until the arrival of kinder bush-walking weather. Instead, a leisurely mid-week sampler of the following fairly special new short stroll seemed just the thing.
Since launching a couple of months ago, Trentham’s new self-guided walk honouring the life of Dr Gweneth Wisewould has been proving a real winner – much like the good doctor herself.
Featuring an informative brochure, the self guided tour takes walkers around numerous Trentham township sites that were of central significance in the life of the much loved local medic (1884-1972).
The new Gweneth Wisewould Walk brochure has been developed by the Hepburn Shire Council, drawing on detailed information that the Trentham & District Historical Society compiled a couple of years ago to mark the 50th anniversary of Dr Gwen’s January 1972 death.
The walk brochures are now available at both Daylesford’s and Trentham’s information centres. So armed with our copy, as the mercury climbs to 32 degrees, we set out to follow it to the letter, starting at No 15 Market Street, the site of the good doctor’s surgery from 1938 to 1954.
Along the way we are joined by Trentham & District Historical Society treasurer Nat Poole. The walk covers an easy distance of about 3.5 km all up and includes sites like Dr Gwen’s old surgeries in both Market and High Streets, the former butcher shop (now a cafe) where she used to store her perishable drugs in the cool room before reliable refrigeration arrived in the town, and the town’s former bush hospital site where she performed surgery and delivered a whole generation of Trentham babies.
For those who haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading Dr Gwen’s biography by Ian Braybrook, or her own (at times hair-raising) autobiographical work, Dr Gwen arrived in Trentham late one rainy evening in 1938, steam erupting from the overheated radiator of her ancient Plymouth.
She would spend the next 34 years supporting the most vulnerable and sick in the Trentham district – and becoming much loved by the community in the process.
She hailed from a wealthy Melbourne family and had recently left her role as a leading surgeon at the Queen Victoria Hospital (now closed).
Together with her devoted housekeeper and companion Ella Miller Bell (Ellabelle) and their two dachshunds, Dr Gwen arrived in the Central Highlands seeking a new start – and what a new start it would prove to be.
Her training and superb surgical skills saved many an injured local and those seeking treatment for all manner of incidents, mishaps and conditions, at the Trentham Bush Hospital.
Dressed in her trademark boots and greatcoat, Dr Gwen often worked tirelessly through the night to attend to patients, driving all hours on muddy tracks in a variety of vehicles including her old Dodge truck – she was also known to ride a motorcycle. She was never known to refuse a request for help.
The walk also takes in many more points of interest from her life including St Chads at 69 High Street, one of Trentham’s oldest residences which became Dr Gwen’s home after her prior Trentham residence was lost to fire.
The walk brochure records that: “It (No 69) was built for Donald McPherson and later given by then owner Patrick Murphy to the Catholic Church and enlarged for use as a convent.
Following the loss of Westacres, Dr Gwen’s beloved earlier Trentham home of 20 years (in a 1965 house fire) St Chads was the house that the people of Trentham quietly cleaned and thoughtfully filled with new household goods as a surprise for the town doctor on her move-in day.”
Especially noting the contributions of historical society member, Sue Worthington who is currently overseas, Nat says the walk is a great way for people to learn about this larger-than-life character whose community involvement also extended to plenty of lively civic activities as well.
“I think everybody should know about her,” Nat says. “She was a pretty amazing woman. If you mention the name Dr Gwen, even today, people just start telling you stuff.”
But Nat reckons that if Dr Gwen was to look down from somewhere lofty above today she’d be a bit “flabbergasted” to see herself honoured in such a way.
“She was one of those people who just gave and gave and gave and never expected anything in return.”
Paddy H and I continue on to complete the walk, including the final resting place of Dr Gwen, a peaceful grave-site at the town’s cemetery. At rest also in the same plot are Ellabelle and Dr Gwen’s foster sister Dorothy Bethune.
As the walk brochure notes: “All three graves face west to capture Trentham’s gorgeous bush sunsets.”
