Inverell Pioneer Village. Picture: Brian Johnston Source: Supplied AN open-air museum in Inverell allows visitors a glimpse into the life of early European settlers in New England. Brian Johnston steps back in time.
Inverell Pioneer Village offers a fascinating snapshot of days gone by.
In 1841, Sidney Hudson Darby, with his wife and children, arrived in Tingha on the New England Tableland by bullock wagon to start a new life.
He constructed a rough dwelling with slabs of wood and a bark roof that still stands as a fascinating and stark reminder of the endurance of early settlers.
Step inside and it smells of soot-blackened wood, dirt floors and hardship. Sunlight struggles through chinks in the planking, and furnishings can be counted on a few fingers.
This is Grove Homestead, a fancy name for a shack that's the oldest of many relocated buildings at Inverell Pioneer Village. Step inside and you can only be impressed by the Australia that was built from such inauspicious beginnings.
The 1890 kitchen of Shadwell Hills at Inverell Pioneer Village. Picture: Brian Johnston Source: Supplied Just a few decades later, this New England district had prospered enough to have schools. Goonoowigall School was built in 1887, cost Pound150 to set up and started with 44 children.
Inside, schoolbooks sit on the desks and satchels hang from pegs as if the children have only temporarily decamped to the playground.
The Pioneer Village brings these buildings to life with personal stories, such as that of schoolteacher James Francis Cullen, who worked at Goonoowigall from 1890 to 1916.
Each day he would send a pupil on a kilometre walk to the house of a Mrs Rowland to collect his hot lunch.
It was securely locked in the metal lunch box that still sits on his desk, so the children wouldn't be tempted by Mrs Rowland's renowned cooking on the way back to school.
Another particularly interesting building is the 1874 pub that once served as a halfway house on the bullock route between Bundarra and Inverell.
Wagoners stayed overnight (often five to a bed) at a cost of fourpence, or sixpence with a potluck dinner.
A sign on the wall explains that no boots should be worn in bed, no dogs are allowed in the kitchen, and no tinkers or razor-grinders are accommodated.
The pub has a surprisingly elegant parlour with a piano, gramophone and table laid with china.
This catered to better-heeled passengers from Cobb & Co carriages, who stopped for refreshments while their horses were being watered.
Apart from these evocative reconstructions, the Pioneer Village displays a magpie assortment of blacksmithing and mining tools, steam engines, grain threshers and a century of photographic equipment.
However, it's the kitchen equipment that makes the visitor realise how easy our lives have become, and how advances in household machinery liberated women from lives of endless drudgery.
Check out the homestead kitchen, built in 1890, that catered to the Mephams and their 12 children.
Singpost to the attractions of Inverell Pioneer Village. Picture: Brian Johnston Source: Supplied It comes complete with a carved wooden ice chest, butter churn, laundry barrel, huge double-oven and fireplace that required endless stoking.
The kitchen is superbly presented with every cluttered detail, from butter pats on the side table to iron pots on hooks, and much-mended clothes hanging to dry over the hearth.
The past can seem romantic at times, but not if you contemplate the energy involved in running this kitchen.
Inverell Pioneer Village is a marvellous place to inhabit for a couple of hours, but you'll be glad to be transported back to the 21st century as you step beyond the gates.
Brian Johnston was a guest of Destination NSW.
Follow his travel blog at www.thoughtfultravelwriter.com
GO2 INVERELL
Getting there
Inverell is 306kms west of Coffs Harbour and 127kms northwest of Armidale in New England.
Staying there
Blair Athol Estate is a manor set in beautiful gardens in the countryside outside Inverell that offers B&B accommodation.
See babs.com.au/blairathol
Ph (02) 6722 4288
Doing there
Inverell Pioneer Village
See nnsw.com.au /pioneervillage
Ph (02) 6722 1717
More: inverell.com.au
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