Story by Kerry Henry
Holy Trinity Church, built in 1886, the oldest functioning church in Chittering is a treasure and has a long and interesting history.
This year as part of the Chittering Spring Festival, visitors to Holy Trinity and the pioneer graveyard can amble through to read the interpretive signage that explains the funerary art and stone relief on the graves. This graveyard is the resting place to many of Chittering’s early pioneers and some of their stories have been researched and recorded.
The Hart Family, who resided adjacent to the church, was the first family whose history was undertaken.
John Hart, born in the village of Yearby in North Yorkshire, arrived in Fremantle in 1877 and worked cutting and hauling Sandalwood. He obtained an immigrant grant of 50 acres in Chittering and set about establishing his property. He carted his wood to Padbury’s Store in Guildford where he was to meet his future wife, Hannah Jane King.
They married in 1881 and took up their holding calling the property “Yearby Bank”, after his place of birth. John cleared, ploughed and planted wheat by hand scattering the seed and continued carting his Sandalwood as well as doing some contract work for the Road Board.
Over time, they increased their holding to around 1270 acres and moved into citrus growing. Today, a legacy of that area is Hart Drive which runs off Great Northern Highway.
John and Hannah went on to have 11 children, all being born on “Yearby Bank”. They celebrated 50 years together in Chittering before John died, aged 73 years, and Hannah went on to survive for another 35 years reaching the grand age of 103. Both she and John are buried in Holy Trinity Graveyard.
Their heritage lived on in son George, born at Yearby Bank, growing up in Chittering to become a good horseman, volunteering for service in the 10th Light Horse during the Great War and eventually returning to help on the family property. He married Augusta Rebecca Martin in 1923 and went on to have 4 children and today, their son Les Hart and his wife Ann now reside in Darkin.
Today, Chittering still has descendants of the Hart family to carry on the family name.
