NameCloutDescription103 acres of Lot 9, the Panorama Estate was surveyed in 1927 by the Rural Land Co. The company was owned by partners Gunthorpe and Orange.
The land was purchased from Clout Bros. who had leased and farmed Lot 9 from Fuller in 1908 and purchased it at the 1921 auction.
The Clout farm house was on the south side of Tongarra Road and on the west slopes of Stoney Range, Lot 1 of the adjoining Bassett Darley Estate.
In the late Tom Clout’s reminiscences, when interviewed by Warilla librarian Dianne Allen for the opening of the Tongarra Museum in 1988, Tom tells of the Clout family's involvement in Oak Flats.
'In 1908 a farm on Stoney Range was for sale and my father (a publican from Balgownie at the time), was interested, so we went out one Sunday to have a look. We had a coach and buggy and with all the family we used to go on picnics...dad thought his brother would like it, so he went to the sale and bid.
'All around the Oak Flats area was called the Oak Flats Cornflats. They used to grow a lot of corn then. Corn was used to feed the horses, everyone in those days had horses for work, and there were no motor cars around much. Then my father got his brother (Bert) to come and live and work on the farm at Oak Flats. He worked it on shares.
'I used to go with my Uncle Bert to milk the cows and help him with the work. I used to love having holidays on the farm to help Uncle Bert.
I used to have a push bike and I would ride from Balgownie to Oak Flats. They still wanted me to milk on Monday mornings, but I still had to ride to Balgownie and go to school. I used to get to school about 11am, because it was a fair way.
In 1916 Tom was 16 years of age and left school to work full time on the farm with his brother who was 13 years of age.
In the late 1920's Tom’s brother wanted to farm on his own so Tom and his wife after looking for a farm at Berry without success heard of a mixed business shop at Randwick and decided to give it a go. It was then that Lot 9 of 103 acres was sold to the Rural Land Co on 12th September 1927.
In 1944 Tom returned to Oak Flats and bought the Stoney Range farm called ‘Lake View’ off his father Percy. Tom gradually sold off one acre blocks, and in 1955 created a subdivision on the south side of Old Lake Entrance Road containing 60 housing allotments being the balance of lot 9 which he sold to the new immigrants for £200 (pounds) each at whatever they could pay as a deposit and four years to pay the balance interest free.
In 1961 Tom and wife Dorothy retired from farming and concentrated on selling the land. From the proceeds they were able to build a nice new home near the old farm house on Stoney Range with all modern conveniences. The home was demolished for the new Casuarina Estate subdivision. In 1986 Tom bought a house in Wollongong where they lived for the rest of their lives.
Information - Gillis, K, 2014, Oak Flats Garden Suburb, Tongarra Heritage Society.
Mr. & Mrs. Tom Clout, Mr. & Mrs. Charlie Jesse at Clout new home Oak Flats.