South Wolumla Butter Factory

**South Wolumla Butter Factory, 410 South Wolumla Road **

Dairying has been the major industry in the region virtually since the first European settlers arrived in the 1830s. Initially, each farmer independently organized his own production, transport and marketing.

Dairy co-operatives emerged in the 1890s, the first locally being a butter co-operative at Wolumla in 1893. (The Bega Co-operative Creamery Company started production seven year later and in 1924 a new butter factory was erected on the present Bega Cheese site at North Bega.) These serviced local areas. At one time there were 49 cheese factories and 8 butter factories operating in the Bega valley and its surrounds – all subsequently closing and their milk supplies having been diverted direct to the much larger Bega Cheese factory. (The current Tilba Cheese factory commenced production in 2013 in the old ABC Co-operative Cheese Factory building in Central Tilba – ABC Cheese having ceased production in 1981.)

A group of early 20th century dairy buildings associated with the South Wolumla Butter factory have survived and now are an attractive and historically-linked group of buildings.

A manager’s house once stood below the factory itself, but it was destroyed in a fire in 2013. The cottages on the other side of the road are assumed to have been provided to the cheese and butter makers and to other staff.