Brim

Brim is a rural village near the boundary between the Wimmera and Mallee regions in north-west Victoria. It is on the Henty Highway and the Yarriambiack Creek, 20 km north of Warracknabeal.

Brim was named after the pastoral run taken up by Henry Davis in 1848. It is thought that the name was derived from an Aboriginal word meaning a spring or well of water.

Warracknabeal was first settled with small farm holdings in 1867, and within ten years similar Mallee blocks were being taken up around Brim. Farmers used Mallee rollers to clear the vegetation, and rabbit infestation was reduced with poisoning and destruction of warrens. In 1889 local inhabitants petitioned for a school. The following year a school was opened and the town of Brim was surveyed. A Methodist church was opened in 1891.

With the extension of the railway line from Warracknabeal to Beulah in 1893, via Brim, a small township developed. A grain shed was built at the railway station in 1894, a Church of Christ was opened in 1896 and a public hall was built in 1905. Brim was described in the 1903 Australian handbook:

Additional amenities included hotel, a coffee palace, a memorial hall (1920) and a Anglican church (1930).

Brim is situated on a bend of the Yarriambiack Creek which encloses a public reserve of about 90 hectares. By the 1970s much of the reserve was derelict, but by 1981 the local community had raised sufficient money to attract supporting funds for swimming, tennis, cricket and netball facilities and two club rooms. There are also a golf club, community parkland, a camping area, and water sport facilities.

Brim had a hotel, a general store, silos, a bowling green, an Anglican church and a combined Uniting/Church of Christ. The school, which had 19 pupils in 1998, closed in 2000. In 2011 the Commercial Hotel was put on the market with locals holding a final farewell when it closed in 2013.

In September 2010 and again in January 2011 many parts of regional Victoria experienced widespread severe flooding. Parts of Brim were inundated from Yarriambiack Creek but most of the town was saved by temporary levees.

Brim’s census populations have been:

^{*and environs}