Newsletter No - Blue Mountains Association of Cultural Heritage ...

A “gozunder” that fascinated school children
Continued from page 9
Upstairs, one of the hotel bedrooms
is furnished as a typical Victorian
bedroom, along with a commode
chair and a “gozunder” (these
fascinate school children), while the
long room at the front upstairs,
which opens onto the verandah and
which was used for dinners,
meetings and dances, contains the
original Mudgee Municipal mayoral
desk and chair and councillors’
table and chairs; the long room also
houses war memorabilia and a
chemist display.
Other theme rooms within the
original hotel building are a men’s
room, a women’s room, a children’s
room, “kept for best” room,
handicraft room, and a room
featuring early cameras and record
players.
When the society bought the
property it had been considerably
reduced in size and all the old
outbuildings – stables, outhouses,
sheds – had been demolished.
Since then an adjoining block of
land was purchased and a variety of
buildings, all sympathetic in design
and materials, have been erected or
transported to the site.
These structures include a
combined meeting room, kitchen
and toilet block; a recreation of a
vertical slab hip roofed cottage; a
large gabled storage/display shed
with skillions; and extensive skillion
machinery and vehicle display
sheds.
In 1996 a gabled, corrugated ironclad
former church was re-located
to the site from South Mudgee for
use as display space, especially to
house the museum’s sizeable
costumed doll collection; originally
built in 1906 at Lue, a village to the
south-east of Mudgee, the church
had been previously moved in the
1930s into Mudgee.
More recently, a brand new
curator’s storage and work shed
and a blacksmith shop have been
completed, the latter made solely
from recycled material.
The Colonial Inn Museum and its
grounds contain an enormous
collection of 19th and early 20th
century Australiana: domestic
A panorama of the west of Mudgee township in the late 1800s showing
the West End soap factory in the foreground and at the top centre
West End Hotel to the left of the bend in the unsealed road. Image
courtesy Mudgee Historical Society Inc
implements, furniture, agricultural
machinery, tools, horse-drawn
vehicles and cars, and also holds
substantial photographic and
archival documents collections.
It is open seven days a week and is
used extensively by local schools
as an educational resource, and as
a community meeting place for a
number of organisations.
It is also a welcoming place for
visits from local nursing homes, and
for the last four years the Mudgee
Historical Society Inc has hosted a
courtesy morning tea for local
senior citizens during National
Seniors’ Week.
The Mudgee Historical Society Inc
is solely a volunteer organisation
which wholly owns its site and
buildings and relies on the hard
work of its volunteers and the
generosity and support of its
membership and the community to
survive.
It is especially appreciative of the
constant support of the Mid-
Western Regional Council and its
predecessor, the Mudgee Shire
Council.
The Mudgee Historical Society Inc
looks forward to celebrating the
Golden anniversary of its
establishment in 2014 and of its
existence on site in 2016.
A Moment in Time
exhibition at Hartley
AN IMAGES exhibition titled a
Moment in Time will be conducted
by Hartley District Progress
Association in June 2013.
The exhibition will be staged in the
Hartley historic site for two weeks
either side of the Queens Birthday
weekend.
A yet to be named Fair Day on
June 1 has been diarised by the
Governor of NSW and festivities
on that day will run from 10am to
4pm.
There will be guided walks along
the Cox’s Road in May and June.
These walks will vary in length and
difficulty, limited to manageable
numbers and only on sections of
the original road where landholder’s
permission can be obtained.
Hartley District Progress
Association has a history
conference scheduled for June 8,
2013.
HERITAGE 10
November - December 2012