Eaglehawk Neck - Officers Quarters
Jun. 26th, 2010 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenithTo finish off on yesterday's subject... This little place lays claim to being the oldest military timber building in the country.
The sign says "Officers Quarters Museum 1832". As I said in an earlier post, this site is managed by Parks & Wildlife. An interesting feature of this property is it hasn't been "restored". I've mentioned before my aversion to the nice and neat, furnished in an Appropriate Manner presentation of most old house museum. This is not that. I like it.
It's a little unfortunate that the entrance is at one end of the building, which makes it a long series of rooms that's more like a overly extended shed rather than a house.
I'm going to cheat now and include a copy of a text panel that gives the background of the building. If it's not readable, I'll type it out but as I'll only be copying their words, it makes more sense to represent the original.
Also, a plan of the original building taken from another text panel that I'm including to help me sort the place out. For all it's apparently simple layout, this was a confusing place.
It's a bit blurry (the light in here isn't good) but basically two room on each side of a hallway, and a kitchen and other utility room at the back (now demolished). There's a better quality plan of the house c. 1855, now 6 rooms across the front, plus the rear section that included servants rooms. I think this dates from when Governor Denison and his family (including 9 kids) stayed here.
So now there are six rooms row, and I've numberied them so I can refer to them in photos. Room 1 is the point of entry.
Ready to continue?
And this is the point where I realise I don't actually have any photos of the first room. Um.
Except this one, taken from the third room looking back towards the entrance.
The second room has an interesting construction history.
I'll include a copy of the text again. There are all those references to "northern wall" and "southern wall", but no indicator of which direction is which. I stood there for a while and tried to line up the room I was in with the direction the building must be facing and finally decided that "up" might be "north", but is it really that hard to include a simple direction indicator when so much work must have gone into putting the panels together in the first place?
I think the "At Home In The Officers Quarters" banner is intended to show that the room contents relate to the period of military occupation. In this case, the native problem. "The Final Solution", "The Black Line" (which gives the Tasman Peninsula connection) and what seems to be a reversed image of Arthur's Proclamation.
(I shall pause to wonder whether any of that has any meaning to anyone reading this other than myself.)
(Also I should point out that I didn't stop to read any of the displays. We were a little pressed for time and there didn't seem to be anything new in them. The building itself was the interesting part.)
Room three seems to have been a kitchen. The plastic screen over the window says "A wall, then a door, then a window".
The ceiling.
Looking back through the first three rooms before moving onto the other half of the house.
Between rooms three and four is a hall and the original entrance.
You have just stepped into the entrance hall built in c.1835. This was a part of the works that formalised the rustic hut into a more worthy residence befitting the young officer in charge of Eaglehawk Neck.
The writing on the bricks beside the door (previous photo) says that the older part of the building at some point subsided and the change in levels can be seen here. Part of the door was chopped out and to "tidy things up from the outside" masonite was nailed across the top.
Fourth room, other side of the hallway.
That's a rather uninspiring photo considered how hard it was to take. Very little lighting in the room & the battery indicator on the camera was dropping quickly. It's an interesting way to show the change though.
The sash windows are the original windows and it seems the bigger ones are from the 1855 redevelopment.
Fourth room again. It seems this was a parlour/sitting room throughout all stages of occupation.
I cannot remember what the display in the middle of the room was about, and none of the photos show anything useful (unless you consider a purple blur with yellow blobs useful).
Ceiling.
The fifth room, which is furnished as a living room from the 20th century. I'm sure there is a good reason why there's a military silhouette in a "After the Guards Left" room. See the photo over the fireplace?
Sneaky close-up of it. A similar photo, but without the people in it.
Note the wallpaper. Or am I the only one fascinated by wall coverings? :)
Should I ask if it was always used as a bedroom, why is it now furnished as a living room? I had to check a few times that I'd matched the room and text box correctly. I shall be good and not make any comments about the lack of mechanically-sawn timbers at Port Arthur.
Tented ceiling
The rest of the fifth room.
This is the little hallway bit between the last two rooms. You can see room 5, room 4 and all the way back to room 1.
This is the final room. With wallpaper! The squares are from protective netting over the paper.
The only photo I took because it was extra dark in here. There was an 8 minute animated presentation (activated by the pressing that button on the left) about the escape of Cash, Kavanagh & Jones across the Neck, complete with a discussion about sharks in a bad Irish accent.
Outside, from the other opposite side that the approach. If you compare it to the photo at the very top, it doesn't look like the same building at all.
The Parks & Wildlife Visitors Guide
The sign says "Officers Quarters Museum 1832". As I said in an earlier post, this site is managed by Parks & Wildlife. An interesting feature of this property is it hasn't been "restored". I've mentioned before my aversion to the nice and neat, furnished in an Appropriate Manner presentation of most old house museum. This is not that. I like it.
It's a little unfortunate that the entrance is at one end of the building, which makes it a long series of rooms that's more like a overly extended shed rather than a house.
I'm going to cheat now and include a copy of a text panel that gives the background of the building. If it's not readable, I'll type it out but as I'll only be copying their words, it makes more sense to represent the original.
Also, a plan of the original building taken from another text panel that I'm including to help me sort the place out. For all it's apparently simple layout, this was a confusing place.
It's a bit blurry (the light in here isn't good) but basically two room on each side of a hallway, and a kitchen and other utility room at the back (now demolished). There's a better quality plan of the house c. 1855, now 6 rooms across the front, plus the rear section that included servants rooms. I think this dates from when Governor Denison and his family (including 9 kids) stayed here.
So now there are six rooms row, and I've numberied them so I can refer to them in photos. Room 1 is the point of entry.
Ready to continue?
And this is the point where I realise I don't actually have any photos of the first room. Um.
Except this one, taken from the third room looking back towards the entrance.
The second room has an interesting construction history.
I'll include a copy of the text again. There are all those references to "northern wall" and "southern wall", but no indicator of which direction is which. I stood there for a while and tried to line up the room I was in with the direction the building must be facing and finally decided that "up" might be "north", but is it really that hard to include a simple direction indicator when so much work must have gone into putting the panels together in the first place?
I think the "At Home In The Officers Quarters" banner is intended to show that the room contents relate to the period of military occupation. In this case, the native problem. "The Final Solution", "The Black Line" (which gives the Tasman Peninsula connection) and what seems to be a reversed image of Arthur's Proclamation.
(I shall pause to wonder whether any of that has any meaning to anyone reading this other than myself.)
(Also I should point out that I didn't stop to read any of the displays. We were a little pressed for time and there didn't seem to be anything new in them. The building itself was the interesting part.)
Room three seems to have been a kitchen. The plastic screen over the window says "A wall, then a door, then a window".
The ceiling.
Looking back through the first three rooms before moving onto the other half of the house.
Between rooms three and four is a hall and the original entrance.
You have just stepped into the entrance hall built in c.1835. This was a part of the works that formalised the rustic hut into a more worthy residence befitting the young officer in charge of Eaglehawk Neck.
The writing on the bricks beside the door (previous photo) says that the older part of the building at some point subsided and the change in levels can be seen here. Part of the door was chopped out and to "tidy things up from the outside" masonite was nailed across the top.
Fourth room, other side of the hallway.
That's a rather uninspiring photo considered how hard it was to take. Very little lighting in the room & the battery indicator on the camera was dropping quickly. It's an interesting way to show the change though.
The sash windows are the original windows and it seems the bigger ones are from the 1855 redevelopment.
Fourth room again. It seems this was a parlour/sitting room throughout all stages of occupation.
I cannot remember what the display in the middle of the room was about, and none of the photos show anything useful (unless you consider a purple blur with yellow blobs useful).
Ceiling.
The fifth room, which is furnished as a living room from the 20th century. I'm sure there is a good reason why there's a military silhouette in a "After the Guards Left" room. See the photo over the fireplace?
Sneaky close-up of it. A similar photo, but without the people in it.
Note the wallpaper. Or am I the only one fascinated by wall coverings? :)
Should I ask if it was always used as a bedroom, why is it now furnished as a living room? I had to check a few times that I'd matched the room and text box correctly. I shall be good and not make any comments about the lack of mechanically-sawn timbers at Port Arthur.
Tented ceiling
The rest of the fifth room.
This is the little hallway bit between the last two rooms. You can see room 5, room 4 and all the way back to room 1.
This is the final room. With wallpaper! The squares are from protective netting over the paper.
The only photo I took because it was extra dark in here. There was an 8 minute animated presentation (activated by the pressing that button on the left) about the escape of Cash, Kavanagh & Jones across the Neck, complete with a discussion about sharks in a bad Irish accent.
Outside, from the other opposite side that the approach. If you compare it to the photo at the very top, it doesn't look like the same building at all.
The Parks & Wildlife Visitors Guide
