The Holding Pen

If you have spent any time wandering around the historic precinct or scrolling through old Riverina history, you know that Toganmain Station was an absolute powerhouse in its prime. Covering hundreds of thousands of acres along the Murrumbidgee River, it was a world unto itself.

But have you ever wondered how giant pastoral runs like Toganmain transitioned into the smaller family farms and pastoral blocks that surround us today?

As we prepare to gather at the historic Toganmain Woolshed on 12th September 2026 for Cocktails in the Yard, we look back almost 137 years to a strikingly similar celebration. On Saturday, 31st August 1889, station owner Thomas Robertson hosted a grand festive entertainment inside the woolshed to mark the shearing season, drawing station hands, shearers, and regional guests for an unforgettable evening of music, theatre, and hospitality. Read the full account as originally published in The Riverine Grazier on September 6, 1889.

Anyone who has spent time with the old survey maps of this stretch of the Murrumbidgee will have noticed it: Toganmain has a neighbour whose name shifts depending on which document you are reading. It appears as Jingorambah in 1848, and as Singorambah on every parish map since. Neither spelling shows up in any Wiradjuri dictionary or language-revival record, which makes the discrepancy less a mystery to solve than a small window into how colonial surveyors put pen to paper.

Fifty-six years, one family, one Riverina station. Earlier this year Marianne Thorne — granddaughter of Jack McBratney, Toganmain’s long-serving bookkeeper then manager, and daughter of Bill McBratney, who grew up in McBratney’s house on Tog and worked on the property himself — got in touch with a remarkable collection: Jack’s original 1894 letters applying for the job, and well over a hundred family photographs spanning two generations. Here is their story.

Richard Herps has been a generous supporter of the campaign to save Toganmain Woolshed. He recently sent us something rather special — an original poem inspired by the shed itself — and has kindly given us permission to share it here.

Read more: The Toganmain Woolshed

In 1976 and 1977, Stephen Stewart spent two shearing seasons at Toganmain as a young woolclassing student — rousabouting, wool rolling and getting into no shortage of trouble in his time off. He’s stayed in touch with the place ever since, and recently shared his memories with us, along with a set of photos and mementos from those two years.

A small set of photographs taken on a Box Brownie in July 1955 — the pressed bales, the long iron-roofed shed against a pale winter sky, a sixteen-year-old's first look at a working woolshed. Jan Smith sent them to us recently. They were taken by her late husband Arthur, who got his start that winter at Toganmain.

There's a particular kind of knowledge that only comes from a life lived outdoors - from years of reading country, moving mobs across vast distances, and knowing your animals the way most people know their neighbours. Frank Lees has that knowledge in spades, and recently he shared some of it with us before heading home to Queensland.

We caught up with David Houston, his wife Coleen and daughter Lani during our recent Open Day. David is the grandson of James Houston, whose story begins at Toganmain in 1884.

Ray Eade was fifteen years old when he first walked into Toganmain woolshed. That was April 1965. Sixty years later, he walked back in — and the memories came with him.

Every now and then, you come across something that makes you rethink what wool can do. A conversation with Michelle Dalzell from Michell did exactly that.

Newsletter

April 2026

toganmain.org.au

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Volunteers, old and new, please take special note of the "Volunteers Needed" section below.

Read more: News Update April 26

Every now and then, something lands in the inbox that makes you stop, smile, and appreciate just how deeply people care about this place. This week, it was a message from longtime supporter and friend of Toganmain, Ralph Greenham.

Family history research has a way of delivering surprises, and Donna Outtrim's discovery about her great-grandmother Julia Lutton Morison is a perfect example of how official records don't always match family memory - and sometimes there's a very practical reason why.

Family stories have a way of linking us to the deeper rhythms of a place, offering glimpses into the lives of people who shaped it long before our time. One such story comes from Pam McGann, whose family ancestors were part of the Riverina’s early pastoral years.

Occasionally, a piece of history arrives that captures the voice of the past more intimately than any official record. One such treasure is a letter written in 1899 at Toganmain Station by Jim O’Connor, a shearer and farmer whose words reveal a deeply personal view of life in the Riverina at the close of the 19th century.

Here's a surprise! A song all about Toganmain. Take a listen and follow along with lyrics below.

David Lewis has shared a couple of stories with us — one about the dogs that worked the shed with him, and another about the quiet presence of veterans who passed through Toganmain. But he's since been back in touch with a few more memories, and I reckon they're worth including.

Darren O'Loughlin recalled one of the last shearings held at Toganmain — back in August 2016.

Every time someone adds their name to the list, it’s a quiet reminder of just how far Toganmain reaches.

I was going through the latest newsletter sign-ups the other day, and what struck me wasn’t just the number — it was the stories.

Flash Jack from Gundagai, Banjo Paterson, 1905

In the early 1990s the Twynam Group purchased Toganmain. The Twynam Group's main interest was in large scale cropping, hence the woolshed was left unused and unloved.