Lal Lal was taken up in the year 1840 by Messrs. Blakeney and George Airey, the latter a brother of the Crimean officer so often and so flatteringly mentioned in Kinglake's "History of the Crimean War." In the same year, Messrs. Le Vet (or Levitt) and another took up Warrenheip as a pig-growing station, but the venture failed, and some of the pigs ran wild in the forest there for years, and preyed on each other. After Messrs. Le Vet and Co. had been there awhile, the run was taken up on behalf of Messrs. Verner, Welsh, and Holloway, of the Gingellac run, on the Hume, by Mr. Haverfield (at present the editor of the Bendigo Advertiser), Le Vet and partner selling their improvements for about £30. Shortly after Mr. Haverfield came to Warrenheip, Bullarook Forest was occupied by Mr. John Peerman, for Mr. Lyon Campbell. The Mr. Verner mentioned above was the first Commissioner of the Melbourne Insolvency Court. He was related to Sir William Verner, a member in the House of Commons for Armagh. Mr. Verner took part, as chairman, at a Separation meeting held in Melbourne on the 30th December, 1840, and soon after that he left the colony. Mr. Welsh was the late Mr. Patricius Welsh, of Ballarat; and Mr. Holloway became a gold-broker, and died at the Camp at Bendigo. In the year 1843, Mr. Peter Inglis, who had a station at Ballan, took up the Warrenheip run, and shortly after that purchased the Lal Lal station, and throwing them both together, grazed on the united runs one of the largest herds in the colony. The western boundary of Mr. Inglis' Warrenheip run marched with the eastern boundary of Mr. Yuille's run, the line being struck by marked trees running from Mount Buninyong across Brown Hill to Slaty Creek. Mr. Donald Stewart, now of Buninyong, was stock-rider for Mr. Inglis, on the Warrenheip and Lal Lal stations, and superintendent during the minority of the present owner of Lal Lal. In 1839 Mr. W. H. Bacchus brought cattle from Melbourne and grazed them on his run of Burrumbeetup, the centre of which run is now occupied by the Ballan pound. There is a waterfall on the Moorabool there, which, for its picturesque beauty, is well worth visiting. The run extended on the Ballarat side of the
