"Mountain View" Homestead

Way back in 1979, when I was about 14 years old,  our very small church youth group went for a camping weekend to "Mountain View".  I think it was probably the first time I had pitched and slept in a tent.

"Mountain View" had a hall designed for various groups to visit, and lots of room to run around, a suspension bridge over the creek and an interesting old house to walk around and peer through the windows.  An old gentleman also gave us a demonstration of gold panning in the creek. I took a few photos on my little Kodak Instamatic camera.

The old house really intrigued me, being two stories and of wattle and daub construction. It was pretty derelict at the time.

Move forward forty years........yes, forty years....OMG!!!  Where did that go??!!

On the Easter weekend the National Trust, in conjunction with the new owners, who became the custodians of this historic old building in 2014, held an open day.  Of course, I jumped at the opportunity to visit again after all that time.

The area was settled by a family by the name of "Todd" in the mid 1800s.  David Todd bought this land and opened a general store, while living in a slab hut.  He built this home, completing it in 1894.  It is rather unusual in that the design is quite elaborate for such a rustic building method.  There were lots of  wattle and daub and also pise houses in this area, as it was the first area settled west of the Blue Mountains, when Bathurst was declared a town in 1815.  Not far from here is the oldest pise barn in mainland Australia, but it is also, unfortunately, in deteriorating condition.

When you see it now, you just marvel at the poor state of the building, but this is so much better than it was.

The old house had continued to be neglected and when you see some photos of when the current owners took possession, it looked like it would blow over in a breath of wind.  Everything was leaning very precariously, particularly the second storey balconies,  all the stumps had rotted out, so it wasn't actually attached to the ground, the window frames had moved so much that the glass had gaps on the two diagonal corners, where the frame was very out of square. The mud walls were very deteriorated and the internal floors were rotten.

Anyone with any sense would bulldoze it.  Fortunately, Ken and his daughter Jenny didn't have any sense and they didn't bulldoze it.

You see, it appears that this is the only surviving two storey wattle and daub house left in Australia.  There was at least one other in the district, just a stone's throw from where we lived, when we lived out that way, but it was bulldozed in the 1960s.  "Mountain View" homestead is on the historic homes register and deserves to be preserved.

The other thing that you see after viewing the "Before" photos is how very much work has been undertaken to get the house to the stage it is at now.  The building is now straight, there are gutters, so the rainwater is being directed away from the walls, to prevent further deterioration.

See the poor state of the timbers, where they were just buried directly into the ground.

You can see in the above photo where they have now laid a narrow concrete footing, installed an ant cap and tied the uprights to the footing with a timber beam.  They have also repaired the wattle and daub walls next to the corner post and just above the footing.  It is all very inconspicuous, but should help save and restore the structure.  

Also around the perimeter of the verandah, there are discreet little black plastic circles - termite treatments.  A very wise preventative for the future.

It is interesting around the front door, where all the mud has been removed and you can see the timber construction.  They are currently working on this area and the black plastic is covering some recent restoration.

Even the stone chimneys have cracked from all the movement in the building.  I'm not sure how they plan to fix them.

The back of the house is also in poor condition.  An unusual design feature was that there was no internal access to the second storey.  The two timbers leaning from the top balcony are the remnants of the access staircase/ladder.  The shed to the right of the house is detailed more in the photos below.

There is a second building of interest on the property as well.  This was a general store servicing the local farmers, and also those travelling to the newly opened gold fields to the west.  Surprisingly, they even have a ledger from those days, showing who bought what, and when they restocked, etc.

You can still faintly see the sign writing.

In more recent times it was used as a shearing shed.  Once again, when you see the "before" photos, they have done a tremendous amount of work to conserve the building.

There was an activity on the day to identify some mystery objects.  Some were simple, but others, like the one above, were rather tricky.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to find out what they were.

It was a beautiful autumn day when I visited.  Old Mr Todd certainly selected a lovely spot to build his home.

A local vigneron, who was our next door neighbour when we lived out that way, had been giving advice on how to care for this very ancient grape vine.  He has also taken some cuttings to help perpetuate its survival.

There wasn't a large crowd visiting, but just a nice number, so that everyone could have a chat to the owners.  There were a number of Todd descendants in attendance, as many lived in the close vicinity until recently.  Ken and Jenny are keen to learn as much about the house and local families and community as possible.  There was also the best carrot cake served from their little refreshments stall.

I really enjoyed my visit.  It was a pity that Mick couldn't join me, as he would have found it very interesting too.   It was very good of the owners to share their progress with the public.  Hopefully, down the track, there will be another such day when we can see more progress on this rather ambitious project.

If you are interested, there is a Facebook page with more information.