My Tamania... Tunbridge Cottage

Just off the Midlands Highway on the way to Hobart from Launceston.... (you see the highway has now by-passed these quaint little once booming towns and the people have moved for employment opportunities, to go to school and University or just because they want a more exciting life as there is nothing to do in a small town...no movie theatre...no school for higher education, no jobs....you know the story...the grass is always greener to-da ta -da tadar!!!)..there is a little town that you can see from the highway called Tunbridge.... a town with history of convict settlement...once a booming town with a railway running through that brought passengers and freight.... lots of convict built buildings..some sadly in a state if disrepair and other that have been lovingly restored.... but this little sad cottage caught my eye....

the timber fret work so laboriously carved to adorn the once sat upon verandah in the afternoon sun...

A verandah no more ...not even steps to walk to the front door...it seemed the house was leaning ..bracing itself against the strong cruel winds from the north but perhaps the vicious bitter winds from the south had actually pushed it into that lean...

Of course a fence is no barrier to this adventure seeker.. and the sandstone chimney beckoned me to visit the back of the house...

here i found a wonderful example of the pioneering way to add an extra room or two onto the house... you can see that it is early 1900s by the use of the corrugated iron chimney

of course the shingle roof had long since been covered by corrugated iron as well

inside the little home.... which had long since been left abandoned...you can see the timber walls had been once lovingly lined with all sorts of wall papers ...layer upon layer of them...now peeling in the dampness or the air that came into the rooms through the openings left by deterioration and age as well as the weather

The fireplace where perhaps once a family sat to read by candle lightwhen the children had been put to bed, the mother knitting while the father, home from the fields all suppered up with a hearty meal, sitting smoking his pipe and reflecting on the next days work.....there would have been a crosstitch or perhaps a painting hanging on the walls, a vase on the mantelpiece and perhaps an ornament or two.... who knows...and now we will never know.....

I always think that windows are the spaces to look through into the soul and heart of the home and when they are broken like this one ...how sad that home is

From inside the house this is the front door...that once would have opened to welcome you in...

casting my eyes to the ceiling i saw the paint had cracked and blistered with age....i counted at least 5 layers of different colour...

Yes you were once a well loved and cared for home ...the wallpaper boarder down the hallway must have been a pride and joy as it was quite ornate

If only....if only you could tell your story ..i would listen most intently.... but walls can't speak and those that lived here have long since passed through the veil to their rest ......their stories never to be heard again....... you still give shelter on stormy nights and hot sunny days to those of gods creatures ...so you life still goes on.....