Friday, 9th to Sunday, 11th August 2019. Due to the forecast extreme weather conditions for this weekend, our Committee has decided to close the Forge Bookbarn on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Also, our proposed “At Home in the Cottage” open day on Sunday, 11th August 2019 will need to be cancelled. We apologise for this inconvenience if you had planned to visit our site this weekend;  we look forward to welcoming you later, in much...

THE ANSONIA KITCHEN CLOCK. In pride of place on the kitchen mantelpiece is the Ansonia kitchen clock, now happily marking each hour and half hour with the appropriate number of gongs.  The clock dates from the early twentieth century and was made by the Ansonia Clock Co., New York.  This clock is the “Kirkwood’ model which was being sold in 1914.   In 1844, Anson Phelps formed the Ansonia Brass Co. in Connecticut to supply clocks.  The Ansonia...

The drink of choice of many Australian households in Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was tea.  Tea was drunk first thing in the morning, in the afternoon, at ‘smoko’ time, and before bedtime.  Making the tea correctly was a ritual in itself, before the advent of the teabag. Coffee has now taken over as the popular drink, but the paraphernalia associated with tea making and drinking remain: the teapot, the fine...

  The Annis and George Bills horse trough at the Blacksmith’s Cottage is a survivor of a series of troughs donated by the estate of Annis and George Bills. When he died in 1927, George Bills left his estate of 80,000 pounds to ‘construct and erect and pay for horse troughs wherever they……..are desirable for the relief of horses and other dumb animals.’ The Annis and George Bills Bequest donated over 500 troughs throughout Australia. They were...