Great Houses of Ipswich I - Chasing Our Past At Home (Transcription)

Melanie: Good evening and welcome to tonight's edition of  “Chasing Our Past at Home,” brought to you by Ipswich Libraries.  My name is Melanie and I am the digital archivist and historian working with the Picture Ipswich collection.  Joining me tonight as moderator is Michaela from the Library's Public Programming team. We would like to thank you all very much for joining us tonight for “Chasing Our Past at Home”.

To begin with, we would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians on whose lands we gather today and pay respects to Elders both past present and emerging.

Tonight we're doing something a little bit different.  We're going to be doing our very first “Chasing Our Past at Home” panel, and our presenters are all members of the Ipswich Regional Branch of the National Trust of Australia, Queensland. We have Arthur Frame, Liz Jumelet and Simone Hubbard, and they're going to be addressing the question of "What makes Ipswich houses great?"

Bear with me for one… sorry I'm just trying to make Arthur's video visible again. Are you there Arthur?

Arthur: I am, yes I am.

Melanie: Okay there you are.

Arthur: Here I am.

Melanie: Arthur Frame is the president of the Ipswich Regional Branch of the National Trust.  And as we are looking at images of homes that have participated in the National Trust Great Houses of Ipswich program, Arthur is going to tell us a little bit about some of the Great Houses of Ipswich. So, this first section of this evening is going to be a little bit of a Q&A, so I'm going to ask Arthur some questions. Can you tell us about the background to the program?

Arthur: Yes Melanie. Well, I guess the National Trust local branch began having conversations with owners of some of our Great Houses back in about 2012. We were just talking about the possibility of opening these homes up to the public, and really talking to owners, with quite a bit of consultation about what they may be prepared to do and what they wouldn't be prepared to do, and I must say we thought that maybe a half a dozen home owners may be prepared to open their properties and share them with the public.

We had no idea how successful the program would be or how many numbers would come, so it was a fairly bold step by these owners, but I guess that they were driven by the passion that they had for the homes that they lived in and also being very much aware of the fact that they're custodians of those homes. 

None of them are first home owners. These are all properties where other families have lived before. They were very conscious of that custodianship, and conscious of the fact that they had an opportunity here to share those properties with a public that may be interested.

Tentatively we began in 2013, and we had three homes that we opened in May 2013. We had about 300 or 400 people come through the houses on those days, so we were really quite excited about that, we thought that was pretty fantastic and so too were the owners.  Well, of course we had no idea that the program would go on to be as successful as it has.

We've opened 27 private homes since that time and on a number of occasions, you know, these homes have been open more than once, so I guess that speaks volumes in relation to how the owners felt about the process. We have had attendees now up to 1800 people going to each of the houses.  That's a little too many, but it seems to have settled now at around 1400 to 1500, which I think everyone would agree is quite enough people to have through your home in six hours on a Saturday.

That's really a bit of the background of it and it's been incredibly successful.  It's not just about numbers, it's very much about the experience and we really have to be very conscious of maintaining the integrity of these homes, not putting them under too much stress when you're opening them to the public.  There's quite a lot of issues of logistics that we need to go into as well as the issues of what makes a great house and how we select them in the first place.

Melanie: How do you select? What makes a house great? What are you looking for?

Arthur: Well, look, I think we very deliberately called it 'Great Houses of Ipswich', not the 'Grand Homes of Ipswich' or the 'Mansions on the Hill'.  You can have a three-bedroom cottage from the 1860s that's a great house as well, that's the way we feel about it. I think everyone feels they live in a great house.  They live in the house that they want to live in, that's their life where they live out their existence. We feel that many, many houses are great houses. 

The criteria for us is that first of all they must be privately owned.  These are people's private homes. 

Then I guess we look at selecting properties where the interior and the exterior elements are compatible, so that visitors can appreciate the stylistic integrity of the home.

Then we're looking at, when we select properties, we're looking at a wide range of architectural styles.

So I guess the reason behind the National Trust doing it is that we want to educate people about their heritage, their cultural and built heritage, but we also want to show as many different styles architecturally as possible.

We've selected properties over the last seven years, properties that range in age from the 1850s through to the 1950s.

When you say what makes a great home, well it can be from any period.  We just want a really good example of that particular style of architecture. Because they are private homes, they've been adapted, people live in them, they're not museums, you know they're very much the home that people live in and they style them to their own taste at the time. 

So it's about also promoting the liveability of heritage homes in Ipswich. I think it's been a very positive program for Ipswich.  You know we've had some bad press in recent years, as some of the viewers may be aware, so to have something really positive happening for the community has been important as well.  It builds community capacity, I think, and it raises people's awareness of the property.

Melanie: So you're talking about the variety of houses and the variety of ages.  What is it about Ipswich and its homes that actually attracts an audience to come? How do we get a thousand people through a house in a day?

Arthur: Well look, I think we've been quite amazed as it's grown.  As I've said, we've attracted … (these aren't just Ipswich people coming to look at Ipswich homes), maybe half of them might be from the, you know, 4305 kind of postcodes, but we get people - we've got people regularly flying up from Sydney, they're become real groupies.  People coming from northern New South Wales, from right up to Bundaberg, Maryborough, all of these places because I guess Ipswich is known for its architectural heritage and this program has made people even more aware of it.

A lot of homes, along the way, have fallen down into disrepair and people have brought those back to life and those people that have that passion for their home that want to share those properties and show people what can be done, have encouraged other people to do it.

I find when I drive around Ipswich and look at the houses that are being done up, people are really becoming aware of it. They come for a range of reasons, I suppose. A lot of people that visit are actually coming because they're doing up a heritage property themselves, or they're just curious about “I wonder what's behind those walls?” - we all feel a little bit like that. Essentially, they are people who are very interested in our architecture and we get more and more people, as I say, coming from further afield to see our properties.

When you start looking at it and say we've had 27 different homes open, as you can see in the slides at the moment, they are very, very different homes and beautiful examples of those styles of architecture. It encourages people to the city and it encourages them to spend while they're here as well, and with small business, antique shops, restaurants etc.  There's a lot of benefits from a program like this in the community. 

Melanie: We are about to have a look inside one of the great houses, Gooloowan,  Would you be able to do a brief introduction to the house for us?

Arthur: Well sure, I mean Gooloowan, I'm sure Genevieve Isbell who's going to host that will give you plenty of information about it.  It was built for the Cribb family, and it dates from around early 1860s.  In fact, when we actually opened Gooloowan on one occasion, we opened three houses that were all built around 1865. One was a country farm house out at Coominya, Bellevue Homestead.  And one was Notnel, which is really almost in its original state - beautiful the way in which it's been kept in that 1860s interior; and then Gooloowan. So that's part of the experience as well and I think that's what attracts people. 

You wouldn't believe that, just on the surface of it, that all of those three homes were all built within 12 or 18 months of each other. You're about to see Gooloowan - there it is on the screen now - and Genevieve Isbell has been so generous and she's opened that property on a couple of occasions for us, and I know she will do again, because people are always keen to go back and see such a magnificent home.  It's a perfect example of an owner who's so generous to share her passion and knowledge for the home that she lives in.  So let's go to Gooloowan.

Melanie: Okay Michaela, thank you.

[Music]

Genevieve: Hi everyone, I'd like to welcome you to Gooloowan, the 'House on the Hill'. Come on in.

So the previous owners were originally the Cribb family - Benjamin Cribb and his second wife Clarissa built the house in 1864, and the family continued to live here for 123 years, passing it down through the generations.

We bought it in 1988.  We've been here for well nearly 30, 32 years we've owned it, I suppose. We've met a lot of people through the house so that's been wonderful too.

The Cribbs decided to use an Aboriginal name for the name of their house, so Gooloowan means 'House on the Hill.'  They must have decided that was the way to go.  They got the first block. I mean they were here early, they came in 1849, they did well, they worked hard. Mrs Cribb is the second Mrs Cribb. She had six children and there were four children from the earlier marriage, so an army of 10 children had to be housed, so they got going and they got the local architect, Charles Balding, to design them a house. 

It's 25 rooms, it's pretty big and the block itself is nearly 8,000 square meters, so it's a nice big block that sets off the house really well.

The library is particularly wonderful. It's got all the 3,000 books that belong to the family - the family's reading over 123 years.  Some of the books were given to the State Library, others were sold to a private collector of first edition books, but mainly all the other books were left there, and I believe there's 3,000 books there which I've had catalogued. That would have been Mr Benjamin Cribb's office. It's got the old safe, it's got his desk, and a lot of memory of the past, because it really gives you an idea of what the family were interested in, what they thought about, over those 123 years.  Some of them were lawyers, some of them were school teachers, so there's books that reflect that as well, so it's very interesting.

The cellar is accessed through a trapdoor and there's about five steps and when we first came there were those agricultural pipes where they kept their wine.

The kitchen was very original when we came, and there were two rooms. We took the wall out in the kitchen and used the bricks to pave the courtyard here, and then made it into a lovely one big huge room.  The stove is still there, the original stove, and the hot water system was aligned to where the fire in the stove was, and that was how they got their hot water, which I remember on a stove when I was a child, that's that was what we did too.

The lift, well the lift was put in, I think, about 1930, nearly 100 years ago, when Mrs Walker became incapacitated.  She had to be lifted up and she was in a wheelchair, and she said … she used to scoot around the verandah upstairs and she had the best view in Ipswich.

A lot of people think they can hear the cry of a baby from the verandahs at night, but that relates back to the story of the maid, Rose Dole, who delivered a baby up in the servant's wing and then I think the baby had already died, but she brought the baby down and threw it in the underground tank. Then of course they didn't know anything about it until the water started to taste funny and then they investigated it and found a baby. That might have produced a lot of stories about a ghost of a baby and the baby crying.

The fountain actually comes from India.  It took quite a while.  People thought we were putting in a swimming pool in the front yard, I think.

We reshaped the yard and then put it there and it's very nice to wake up to - at eight o'clock until 10 o'clock, it's going.

The house is a lucky house. It's very lucky because of the people who lived here.  They looked after it so well for 123 years, and it was never turned into a convalescent home or a private hospital or a school or anything like that.  It's always been a home. 

Melanie: Gooloowan has always been one of my favourite houses in Ipswich.  Actually, when I was in primary school, it would have been around the same time that we were starting to acknowledge our heritage homes in Ipswich a lot more, and my primary school had named our sports houses Gooloowan, Belmont, Rockton and Claremont, and I was in Gooloowan. Not sporty, but that's part of the origin of my love of Ipswich history.

We are now going to be joined by Liz Jumelet, who's going to be talking about her house, her Great House of Ipswich. Liz and her husband Ron purchased Rhossilli in 2005 and worked with a dedicated team of heritage enthusiasts and professionals, and only one photo, to bring Rhossilli back to life.  So Liz, if you are there, I will hand it over to you to tell us all about Rhossilli.

Liz: Thank you Melanie for the opportunity to speak about our beautiful home Rhossilli. Rhossilli has been featured twice in the “Great Houses of Ipswich” program and each time, at the end of the day while exhausted, we're left with the feeling that it was all worth it. People that come, love their heritage homes and they love to see them protected and love the stories around how they've been protected.

As Melanie said, it's hard to believe that this photo of the Summerville family is the only factual artifact we have of Rhossilli. Any information we have has been gleaned from others who've tried to piece together the history of the property.

When we purchased Rhossilli in 2005, we couldn't even establish when it was built, there was lots of conversations around when we thought it was built. Fortunately, some overzealous cleaning revealed the name and date scratched in the concrete behind the fireplace: E. Greenway 1888, that magic date.

Samuel Shenton has been credited with, and he was an architect in Ipswich, and he was credited with designing the house. He was a contractor - he was a building contractor, an architect, and a politician (I think most people in Ipswich at that time were politicians).  He arrived in Ipswich in 1851 and died in 1893. George Brockwell Gill worked as an architect for Samuel Shenton. 

But what's confusing for us is that when we're searching Samuel Shenton, we find that he was credited with drawing up the plans for Rhossilli for Mr Pollet Cardew in 1860. We do not believe this was our Rhossilli, but maybe a property to the west of Ipswich, but what's the connection?  There must be one. It's all very confusing and maybe we need to employ Adam Ford from 'Who's Been Sleeping in my House?' to piece together Rhossilli's history.

We've been told that when this house was built, it was named Caerleon, and was renamed Rhossilli in 1919. Where this information comes from, we don't know.  Both names are Welsh place names. 

We've been told that the build was commissioned by Richard Gill. He was the Ipswich postmaster for 33 years.  Richard Gill was born in 1819 in London and arrived in Ipswich in 1849, he died in 1913.  He was also the father of a reasonably famous man, James Howard Gill, who was a successful solicitor in Ipswich and who went on to become the Crown Solicitor of Queensland.  Unfortunately, we've been unable to find any concrete links between the Gill family and Rhossilli.

In 1904, the Summerville family purchased Caerleon. William Summerville, again, was a prominent citizen, solicitor, and politician.  He won the seat of Stanley for Labor in the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1902.  He was the Mayor of Ipswich in 1903.  (It's interesting to note (all these interesting things I found out), that prior to 1921, Mayors were elected on an annual basis in Ipswich.  Up to 1921 there was something like 40, sorry 51 Mayors.) William Summerville died in 1919, and his family moved away taking the name Caerleon with them. 

This photo is a typical family portrait, a family sitting proudly in front of their beautiful home.  It's interesting to note how essential this photo was for the restoration, it was our most important reference for exterior features. The next owners were the Simpson family. This was when the property was renamed Rhossilli.

Mr Henry Grosvenor Simpson Jr. was prominent in all aspects of the community of community life and he held many important positions of an honorary nature.  A quote from 'The History of Queensland, its People and Industries', written in 1917, described him as a strong advocate for clean and manly school. He died in 1949 and it was his wife, or his widow, I beg your pardon, who converted Rhossilli into flats. It was Mr H.G. Simpson's mother who was the daughter of Mr Pollet Cardew, and possibly this is the link between Rhossilli in West Ipswich and Rhossilli in Newtown.

This is another photo that has surfaced of Rhossilli.  It was taken, we think, in 1939. It was probably in this period of ownership that changes started to happen: electricity and plumbing, land was subdivided, rooms were reconfigured at the rear of the building, the jacaranda is there in the foreground, however the pines aren't evident at the rear. On the gate it says Rhossilli, but also those flats that are next door to us, don't seem to be there.

We can feel sad about the state we found Rhossilli, when we purchased it in 2005. However, we should be celebrating the fact that this house was still standing and had not been demolished or buried, like so many other homes in Ipswich, for its subdivision appeal. It's nearly an acre of land in the centre of Ipswich.

Despite the obvious disrepair, when walking through the house it was evident that Rhossilli had very good bones.  Solid foundations well buried into the concrete, sorry - solid foundations well buried into the ground, thick rendered walls, and glimpses of some beautiful features: cedar skirting and architrave, big rooms with high ceilings, fireplaces with cedar mantels, beautiful double-hung sash windows, and some sensational brickwork with coining, which I might add was not painted.

Family and friends despaired, as you could imagine, but we could see what was underneath.

Working with a team of dedicated heritage tradesmen and enthusiasts, a heritage architect, Jacquie Pearce, and that one photo, Rhossilli was brought back to life.

It was in one of the fireplaces we found E. Greenaway scratched in the concrete - that photo in the bottom right hand corner.  Ernest Greenaway was a descendant of the first colonial architect, Francis Greenaway.  He was a stone mason in Ipswich and he resided in York Street in East Ipswich. The fireplaces were missing their metal grates, and in some instances completely gutted and converted into wardrobes.  Fortunately three of the cedar mantels survived. Again, that photo on the bottom right hand corner shows the fireplace that was the only one that was left with its original hand-painted tiles.

Dealing with the brickwork was expensive and time consuming. Removing the paint - it was thick purples and pinks - from brick walls, knocking out walls, rebuilding walls, and re-pointing, all required the expertise of a heritage bricklayer. It involves salvaging every brick, analyzing water, and painstakingly laying and re-pointing bricks.  Any bricks that were found scattered in the garden were rescued and used.

Renovating the cedar took this man, Grant, 12 months. Every window, door and fireplace surround was removed, cleaned with methylated spirits, and re-polished.  Windows were re-glazed when necessary and re-strung.  Because the cedar architrave and skirting was plugged or fixed into the rendered walls, it was impossible to remove it, so it had to be cleaned and polished in situ. Overall, we used something like 250 litres of methylated spirits.

When Rhossilli was finally revealed we were concerned we would not find any of the iron lace. Fortunately, there was one panel and a half, on the each side of the tops of the steps that was all hidden under fibro sheeting.  This certainly saved us from having to forensically study that one photo and, by the way, it wasn't very clear in that photo anyway.  We were able to have the pattern copied and we got new balustrading.

After 12 months of intense labour, Rhossilli was finally restored to her former glory. 

One of the biggest issues we had with tradesmen and architect and family was that whole “Do we renovate? Do we restore? How much do we restore? How much do we renovate?” While it was important to us to faithfully restore Rhossilli.  We also had to keep in mind that this was first and foremost a family home and needed to be lived in.

Garages, storeroom, barbecue entertainment deck, and a room where teenagers could hang out were included in the plans and hopefully don't detract from the house. These spaces have been vital to the comfort of living in this home.  A modern inclusion was a beautiful stained glass window made by a friend.

Three small rooms at the rear of the house were used to create a modern spacious kitchen.  The original kitchen was in this space, but at some stage, possibly in the 30s, the stove recess and chimney were demolished.

One of the rooms, towards the end here, was a bathroom with modern plumbing.

A wide hallway, providing a cool breezeway down the centre of the house, was maintained.

The beautiful iron lace was replicated.

Fortunately, enough bits and pieces of trim survived, allowing them to be copied. It's interesting to note that, apart from the floorboards, pretty much all the timber used was red cedar: veranda rails, roof battens, rafters, trusses, window frames, and of course architrave and skirting. 

If we could salvage and use original pieces, we did.

I wonder if this is Ernest Greenway's handiwork?  Very fancy chimney, there's two of those. Restoring the coining was tricky. In some places it had been painted a nice thick pink color, or in this instance it had been removed, and so this section actually had to be rebuilt.

We were thrilled to find that Thurlow Blinds, so common in Queensland houses, was still in business.  They invented and have been making colonial chain blinds for over 110 years.

Another interesting feature in this photo is the lattice at the front of the house, we believe it to be the original lattice.  It appears to have been hand cut timber.

Another old craft that was incorporated into the modern Rhossilli was the beautiful iron work by local craftsman Dean Wilson Iron, hopefully again it doesn't detract from the old Rhossilli.

Today Rhossilli again sits proudly on the hill at Newtown, surrounded by lush lawns and gardens.  She looks as solid and as glamorous as the day when the photo of the Summerville family was taken.  I sometimes wonder whether previous families ever wondered what would become of the old lady.  We hope, of course, that Rhossilli will still be looking as solid and as glamorous in another 32 years’ time. Thank you for listening. 

Melanie: Thank you for that Liz. I am just doing restoration work on a 1952 house, and I couldn't even begin to imagine how to restore a house as old as yours, so you have done an absolutely brilliant job of that.  Liz is going to join us again a little bit later, when we have a panel discussion, so if you do have any questions, you can start writing them into the chat or into the Q&A section, and we will ask them at the end of tonight's presentation.

Next up we have Simone Hubbard, and Simone along with her husband Jason purchased Lakemba in 2012. With a young family, dedicating their weekends and any spare time to reinstating the original timber details and garden renovations, they have brought Lakemba back to life.  So, Simone.  So you are coming to us from the kitchen of Lakemba today?

Simone: I certainly am.  We live in this house everywhere, so a very modern way of living, but we live in all the traditional spaces, so we use every bit and this is a classic example of where we do pretty much everything we need to do, but in the kitchen. 

Melanie: Can you tell us a little bit about the history of the home?

Simone: I can, but first I would like to pay tribute to the National Trust, and obviously Ipswich City Council for allowing people to share their homes and to share their energy, and hats off to Liz and Ron, obviously we just heard from Liz. I don't know about everyone else, but I was completely awe inspired by what she presented, and the dedication and the detail that they've put into their renovation.

Our renovation came with much less planned scope, I guess, so when we started to look at purchasing Lakemba, we just saw the value as a family space and realistically wanted to ensure that in entering the space, that we paid tribute to all the original details that we could. The kids have actually grown up, over the last eight years that we've been here, watching us dig away at the garden or Jason routing out some detail to match the old details. Anything else I can add there? 

Melanie: Just a little bit about the story of the house: the people who lived there, when it was built, who designed it?

Simone: Lakemba was built in 1902. It was built by William Betts of Perry & Betts, he was a Federation builder. There was a bit of a boom in the early 1900s, late 1800s, and he captured that wave and built the Congregational Hall, down on East Street, so he was quite prominent. We feel that the funds that he raised from actually building that, he poured into his own home, Lakemba.

This home being quite different, you know there's a lot of homes that are built for Mayors, as Liz was saying, and it's quite prominent and for, you know, Cribb & Foote or many other famous families. We particularly love this home because it was built by a builder for his own family and we think he built that off the bat of successful industry. He wasn't a young man when he built this as we believe he had teenage children when he moved into this property. He built it for his wife Isabella and put, I guess we feel, because we can't really pinpoint the architect, we feel that he's taken the best of everything that he's seen.

He worked with Brockwell Gill, he worked with a number of really prominent architects and we think he put all of his preferences into the house.

When you look at the house from the front, it's really specifically quite Victorian with all the really heavy cast iron and as you can see in this old picture here, which is actually not that old it's about the 1980s, but there was still lots of cast iron in place.

But then when you actually get inside the house, as you see the hallway there, there's really solid columns and the archway is very angular, and the box windows are all very angular, there's nothing frilly and pretty on the inside and it's all very solid, which is very Federation, so we feel that his taste was quite traditional from the outside, being quite Victorian, and definitely pushing towards Federation on the inside.

When you look at the way, in the front bedrooms, there's a lot of big sash windows, it almost feels conservatory styling connecting with the outdoors, which really isn't Victorian at all, so it's a mishmash, it's interesting for the fact that it was built by a builder for himself, really don't know if an architect was involved at all.  Yeah, a little bit about the house, how's that work?

Melanie: What were your first thoughts on seeing the house?

Simone: Oh my God, how much work is this going to be to renovate?  Quite honestly, and I think I'd mentioned this in a couple of blogs, that I had my six-month-old baby in my Baby Beyond and we walked through the house and I can see my husband was keen as mustard and I was bamboozled.  I just went 'Uh, I've got to raise a family in this.' It was liveable, and I will say that, it wasn't a complete disaster, but there were some key functional aspects of the house that needed to fix.

The garden at the back, you could see the bones of the old terraces were there, but there were issues with the stairs. I had a toddler, I couldn't let him outside because no fence on the front and the only area that was fenced was really quite dangerous for him. 

I literally just closed my eyes and signed on the dotted line.  Jason was really keen. He had actually renovated these sorts of homes before.

If anyone is aware of the home that burnt down on Glebe Road, back in around 1991-92 - the home was called Coralin, a big Federation Queenslander - absolutely stunning.  His family had previously renovated, he renovated that when he was about 11 or 12 with his parents and he ended up you know getting all those skill sets from them.  Unfortunately, the house actually burned down later on after they had sold it, which was quite sad.  But it was in his blood. 

He really wanted to come home and be in a house that he'd always admired as a child, and I came along for the ride and completely fell in love with the process. 

But also, and I will say this, with the family that the National Trust is, and so people like Liz, and people like Arthur, and people like Carolyn who I know is watching tonight - Hi Carolyn! And yourself, Mel, it just - it really, it's a society, it's a family, and we're all … we all love these homes, and we all cherish what they provide to the community, and also the people who live in it.  And as Arthur says, they're great houses, you know, a lot of the ones that we cherish aren't particularly large, but they've all got their own aspects that we just absolutely adore and celebrate, so. 

Melanie : I'm going to bring Liz back in shortly but before I do … the garden of Lakemba - how much, in your opinion, does it actually contribute to the heritage appeal of the house? 

Simone : That’s a loaded question [laughs].  You know exactly how I'm going to respond to this. 

So, I've always been fixated on the garden and the mystery of the garden, and revealing it, I guess.  We feel that, you know, we always felt it was 50-50, but to be absolutely honest, now that we have fixed the internals to what we desire it to be, which is really quite traditional. 

The garden - it just keeps evolving, and the evolution of the garden, and the way that it contributes to the streetscape with the functionality (we live in the gardens on the weekends), so right down the back, what we've actually done recently (and no one would see this because I haven't really shown too many people) I usually post it on Instagram - is we've actually turned the back into a really strong Victory Garden, so we're growing tons more vegetables, and obviously the citrus are going crazy, but the contribution to the family culturally, but also the architecture is quite significant, so I'd say it's way beyond 50 percent now.

The contribution the garden has on the cultural aspects, but also the build integrity of the home is really quite massive, and I know there's a lot of people out there who feel the same way about their own gardens, so. 

Melanie : I’m going to ask Liz to join us again, and this is your opportunity now that we're going to have a panel discussion.  And if Arthur wants to join in on any of these discussions as well, he can. But for our attendees, if you have any questions for our panellists tonight, anything about their homes, this is your opportunity to start asking them in the chat or the Q&A section.

So Liz, what about Rhossilli and its gardens as well?

Liz : Well, as you could see from that photo, when we finally finished the restoration there was no garden, completely. When we arrived there was a vegetable garden and there was a rose, a round rose garden, but all of that got completely destroyed because we had to put in new plumbing and a new … you know it all got dug up.  And the lay of the land wasn't really practical - it was a big slope and we wanted to terrace it. 

So the garden, as Simone said, the garden has evolved, and it's a slow process, and I'll sit on the veranda and say, “I hate that garden and I'm now going to dig that garden up and change it”.  [But the garden is looking amazing, by the way]. 

It's a slow process and it's time consuming, but gee whiz … and the water bill is huge, despite the fact that we've got 75,000 litres of water. You know you can't have a garden without (well, some people probably say you can have a garden without water, but I don't think you can - you need water).  So I just love the garden, and I just want a wild and woolly garden. I love the garden, and it softens that very stern façade.

Simone : Our house is very similar that way - you need those curves and that softness just to break it all up. 

Melanie : We have a question for you, Simone, on the images, particularly the older images that have been used . So someone has noticed that one of the elderly woman was taken in the front yard of Almondsbury, so can you tell us what the connection to the house is?

Simone : Okay. So back in the 1980s the house was owned by a gentleman called Dr Vincent and he has a sister.  Sadly, Dr Vincent has passed now.  He has a sister called Laura Whitmore, and Laura Whitmore actually came to (as a result, I think, of you know, various exposure through Great Houses) - tracked me down and had a morning tea here, and she presented all these wonderful old photos of Lakemba in the 1980s, after Dr Vincent had purchased and made some modifications (he opened up the parlour room, and did a few things), but he bought it off the Cribb family. 

So those photos of the black and whites of the family inside are in the 1980s, (so not too old, but still I guess given that we're 2020, you know, it is moving on a little) of Dr Vincent and his friends, but also his family as well, that I'm not sure how many of those got up into that presentation. 

But his family - now Laura Whitmore, I believe, is somehow connected to Almondsbury, and she had many of those images which I have now passed on to Mel for Picture Ipswich to be able to upload, and so there's some fantastic ones of Almondsbury in the garden, with various family.  And also I think there's a picture which I'm not sure has been brought up (probably later, Mel) of four Ipswich Grammar boys as well, looking all smart and spiffy after some activity -looks like it may have been rowing back then. So Declan (that's where those photos actually come from) and they're quite amazing. When I saw those I just couldn't believe it.  Hopefully that answers your question. 

Melanie : So with Laura, she is part of the Williams family.  So they're the stone masons in Ipswich, and this relates to our previous Chasing our Past at Home.  She's also connected to Harry Williams who is the photographer H.O. Williams, so yes.  Even though she lives in Canberra she is still very much a part of  preserving our Ipswich heritage as well .  So I did get to meet her recently too. 

Simone: She's fantastic isn't she ?  She's so excited and engaged.

Melanie: What is the experience of living in an older home … you're preserving the integrity of the house, but both of your houses are both living houses . You know, you've raised children in them, you interact not only with the gardens but with the house itself .  So what is that experience like? 

Liz : Oh dear! I think it becomes, you know, the new normal. For us it’s just normal - it's our house, it's our home, and I think you … day-to-day living, you get dust, and you get grime, and you've got to clean them, and you've got to fix things. [And lots of the dust is a common feature as everyone would know who lives in timber and tin or even you know a brick and …] Yeah, I think the size, in our case, it's a big house, and so there's lots of space, and that's something that we just take for granted, I think.  After a while you just expect a house to be this big.  Probably all I can say is it's our normal.  It's where we live, it's our home, with the same issues that every other home has.

Simone :  Yeah, for us we're very much the same, although I know that Jason comes from a family who have renovated homes very similar to that, I get gobsmacked every time I drive up, and go “Dang!” you know, we managed to grab that house! And we, you know, it does become a new normal, but I'll never ever ever walk into these doors - you know, walk through this door here, and you know, see my son in the room he has, my daughter who was lucky enough to have the old parlour room of the home, and go “Wow!” - that this is crazy, that we have the ability to have a home like this. You know we are from very I'll say humble beginnings, and whilst we still feel that, you know being in Ipswich, you always … we are grounded in a coal-driven you know industry where Ipswich comes from.  We really feel that we are lucky to be where we are, with the home that we have, constantly reminding children.

How about you, Liz? - that how lucky they are to have grown up or being exposed to this kind of heritage? 

Liz : Oh, and it's very explained, it's embedded.  It's just who they are and it's interesting to know all three of the girls have gone and bought modest homes.  But you can see the influence.  You can see the love of old things, and the upcycling and the renovating, and they're not, you know, they don't have to go to Ikea to buy their furniture.  They're quite happy to go to the second-hand shop and buy their furniture.  They're quite happy to get the metho and steel wool out and clean up a piece of furniture.  Again, that's what I was talking about being their normal. 

The other thing I think, and I should have probably mentioned this is we've never regarded it as a museum.  And anyone that's been to this house, if you look at some of the art on the wall, it's quite modern.  We have some rooms that are quite traditional, but basically it's what I like, it's what we like, that's what comes into the house.  And I think that for us it's about protecting what is really important. Like we wouldn't paint the architrave. We wouldn't.  There are certain things we wouldn't do.

Simone : You've been very hands-on, Liz, and I think that's been evident to anyone who's heard the stories, about the way that you've renovated that place.  You know, Ron is more than happy to, you know, tell people how many splinters he's had in his fingers, [and how many names came out of the veranda], so you know the fact that you've actually learned all that, and they will do the same thing again. 

Liz : And that's their normal. It's part of who they are now. Yes, so it goes on, doesn't it? 

Simone : It does.  It’s called paying it forward, isn't it?  This is what we're doing tonight, we're paying it forward.

Melanie : So would you do it again?  I know you perhaps, never want to leave your houses, so they could be your forever homes, but would knowing what you now know about the restoration process, would you start it again?

Liz : Well, Melanie, it's interesting that you say that because Ron and I, our first home was an old catholic church at Fernvale. [laughs].  And that got moved onto our land without a roof. And we developed that into a home, and that took … that was 25 years.  So the children grew up in that, that was where they grew up. So yeah, we're suckers for it. This wasn't daunting at all! 

Simone : Clearly not. So look, I think we would do a different scale - this is about as big as we'd ever want to go. And I think … our children are tweens and I think we won't ever be moving higher than … in terms of space, bigger than the space that we've got. We’ll only ever shrink.  Quite honestly I think the way that I feel now, and you know the love that you put into a place, it's not just to (like Liz said) to make it like a museum.  It's everything's just how you want it.  I'd say at this point, no I probably wouldn't, unless I had 10 extra years of youth and vibrance, go back and start again. And I think, you know, yeah you learn to love a space, and I would probably … no.

Liz : I'd really love to build a really super modern house. 

Simone : [laughs].  I did not see that coming, by the way.

Liz : I would really like to do that one day.  I don't know that I ever will because I love living here.

Simone : Actually I have spoken to a lot of people.  Funnily enough, Mel, you've asked this question, you know, what would you do next? And everyone who's had a home, a really historical home, where they've preserved detail,  In their next time they might have done exactly the same, or they've gone completely opposites and gone glass and metal, and you know, simplicity and minimalism, and I think it's either one or the other you know.  Somewhere in between - it's achievable, it's possible - but anyone who I've known who's gone down to the detail, a lot of these people in a trust have, will either stay with it, or they'll do the opposite.  No, I might be wrong, quite possibly.

Melanie : Well, we've almost at the end, unless any of our attendees have any additional questions that they would like to ask, I am going to ask you one question each.  When you've opened the houses for Great Houses of  Ipswich, what have been some of the comments that you have received?  And I think with Liz, Rhossilli, because of its history of use as a nursing home, you might have received some more interesting comments of people making connection to the house.

Liz : Lots and lots and lots of people, in fact.  That's one of the great things about the Open House, I think one of the things that I know Ron and I both enjoy is people’s stories.  And gee whiz, I'm just trying to think of a more unusual story.  We met a man who lived here when it was two flats, and he grew up in one of the flats.  A man rang me from Canberra once, and I've got a feeling he might have been the Guild story, part of the Guild thing, but he rang me sort of the next day after the Open House and my brain was exhausted, and I didn't have the where-for-all to get more information.  But I know one really good story was we had the open day on a Saturday, and I'm in my pyjamas and I walk out the back (I don't know why I walked out the back) and there were a group of people standing at the gate, and I said hello, and they said what time does the open house start?  I said it was yesterday, and they'd driven from some miles and miles and miles away, and anyway, “would you like to come in?” - so here I am entertaining these people giving them a tour of the house in my pyjamas! Ah dear, dear, dear.  But anyway that's the passion, isn't it?  It's the passion.

Simone : That's why we love you, Liz.

Liz: So you know, I made them a cup of tea and everything. 

Simone : Okay, so did you want me to answer that question as well?

Melanie : If you wanted to, just quickly… no, no, you can answer that question as well. 

Simone : Actually, I was just pretty much mimicking Liz's comments.  The most interesting questions we get are actually about décor, funnily enough - “what's the colour of the wall?” You know, these sorts of things.  So but that's all part of it too, as Arthur says very specifically, that you know there's a lot of heritage enthusiasts, but also a lot of people coming to live in these homes and would like to know what you've done to make them look the way that they have or become functional the way that they are, and yeah that's it's very enjoyable to share because seriously you don't go through eight years of renovation, as Liz and Ron do, without wanting to share a piece of that to inspire others.

Melanie : Okay we have actually unfortunately run out of time.  I could have kept asking questions for a lot longer. 

Simone : Before you finish, just to credit Nicola Rose for the photography, the event photography, that was yes in this presentation as well. So thanks, Nicola, if you're listening, very much appreciate it.  You're fantastic and awesome. [Fabulous photos, fabulous photos].

Melanie : And we have a few more thank yous, obviously to Arthur, Liz, and Simone for joining us tonight.  I also want to thank Caroline for providing some of the photos that we displayed as well, and the Ipswich Events branch, and Genevieve for allowing us to use the Gooloowan video as part of tonight's presentation.  And we also want to thank all of our attendees for coming along.

So I bet you're all eagerly waiting to hear what we have next planned for you.  Our next “Chasing our Past at Home” is going to be on Tuesday the 29th of September, and from 6 pm again.  And we are going to be joined by Caleb Howgego, who is the historian specializing in the history of Ipswich in the United Kingdom.  So for Caleb it's going to be 9:00 am his time, 6:00 pm our time, and he's going to take us on a tour of his Ipswich, providing a bit of a history of the town, which is of course our namesake. And he's particularly focusing on the Victorian-Edwardian era and looking up into the modern day.  So it's very much going to mirror the link to European history in our Ipswich. 

So we're going to be looking at some important architecture in Ipswich, UK, perhaps uncover some surprising stories connected to the town and it's more notable historic characters along the way.  And Caleb has actually published a few books on Ipswich, so I have been reading them myself lately.  And there is some absolutely incredible civic architecture in their Ipswich, so please come along and join us on the 29th of September.  Registrations are now open on the Ipswich Libraries webpage.

So thank you everybody for attending.  We're going to finish tonight now and if I can just ask our panellists to remain on the zoom for just a few more minutes.  Thank you everybody.