History of Uleybury

Uleybury was named after Moses Bendle Garlick, a weaver who migrated from the village of Uley in Gloucestershire, England in 1837. Garlick was a pioneer settler and lay preacher.

This hills district reminded him of his native cotswold and he settled in the area. Garlick named the area Uleybury – Uley being after his home village and bury being the name used in Gloucestershire for a tree-covered plateau

In 1851 Garlick built the Baptist church known as Uley Chapel at a cost of 400 pounds. Sadly the chapel and graves were vandalised quite badly during the 1970’s and 1980’s. On March 10, 1981, the church was demolished and today only a few headstones remain. The front boundary wall that encloses the cemetery was made from the stone of the demolished chapel. Garlick and early pioneers such as Barritt, Bowman, Ifould and McKenzie were buried in the cemetery.

A comical story about a local ghost was told by Frank Ifould in an article in the Bunyip Newspaper in 1953 while he was drinking a bottle of scotch.

My old dad used to give one of his vineyard workers a bottle of wine a day for himself, but this wasn’t enough on the days dad went to town and the worker used to leave here pretty full sometimes. A friend of ours dressed up in big white sheets, jumped out and frightened hell out of this fellow at the cross roads one night. The tippler went for his life, spreading a story of a giant ghost, which eventually grew into a coach with headless horses. From that day to this the cross roads out there have been known as Ghost Corner.

The Uleybury School was built in 1856 due to the efforts of Moses Bendle Garlick and was erected on land provided by J P Buttfield. The school known as Uleybury was changed to One Tree Hill school in the 1940’s and remained so until 1971 when a new school opened. In 1979 the school building was reopened as a museum and is now open to the public.