Originally from LiveJournal
This one is Blundells Cottage from the park along edge of Lake Burley-Griffin in Canberra. One of the few buildings in the area that pre-date the creation of the Australian Capital Territory. Information from the self-guided tour brochure is in italics.
This small stone cottage was built about 1860 as a home for workers on the Duntroon Estate. A number of familiar lived in the cottage over the hundred years it was occupied. The first two families, the Ginns and then the Blundells were employees of Robert Campbell, who owned the Duntroon Estate.
![Img_9581 Img_9581](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2323203/2323203_original.jpg)
The front opens onto this living room, or parlour, and there's a bedroom to the right. Then through that door there to a work room, with another bedroom off to the right. Then through the next door to a little lean-to type hall and the kitchen. And a door to the backyard and shed at the end of the hall. Hence the bright light.
![Img_9583 Img_9583](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2323551/2323551_original.jpg)
Another view of the parlour.
The objects in this room reflect leisure activities that were popular at the time. ![Img_9591 Img_9591](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2323964/2323964_original.jpg)
The bedroom off the parlour. Note the edge of the wall.
![Img_9658 Img_9658](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2327495/2327495_original.jpg)
This is the back/work room.
This room had various uses over the one hundred years that the cottage was occupied. It is probably that it was a winter bath area during the Blundell era [from 1874], with bath water being carried up from the river and heated over the fire. ... It may have also functioned as a work room for leather working, ironing, and extracting honey from the Blundell family's beehives.
The original shingle roof can be seen through a space in the Hessian ceiling. ![Img_9612 Img_9612](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2324469/2324469_original.jpg)
Still in the workroom, the doors lead to the parlour and second bedroom. Rough walls.
![Img_9665 Img_9665](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2327848/2327848_original.jpg)
Also note the different types of flooring.
![Img_9614 Img_9614](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2324519/2324519_original.jpg)
The second bedroom, off the work room.
![Img_9634 Img_9634](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2325941/2325941_original.jpg)
From the little hall, looking back towards the front door: work room, then parlour, with the bedrooms off to the left.
Two additional rooms were added in 1888. Initially, [this room] was used as a bedroom. It probably became a kitchen in the 1930s when the Oldfields moved into the cottages. Many of the objects on display would have been in use until the 1940s and '50s. The room through that door
which is now used as a office had many different uses during the Blundells' time. ![Img_9626 Img_9626](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2325635/2325635_original.jpg)
![Img_9619 Img_9619](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2325070/2325070_original.jpg)
From outside the back door, looking back into the hall with the kitchen to the left there.
![Img_9617 Img_9617](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2324916/2324916_original.jpg)
The backyard with slab shed.
The slab building was constructed by splitting tree trunks into thick planks, or slabs. This was common building practise and only used hand too. ... As the Blundell family grew, the old boys slept out here [in the shed] with their father. They probably used camp beds and kept a wood stove alight. ![Img_9636 Img_9636](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2326167/2326167_original.jpg)
Inside the slab building.
![Img_9640 Img_9640](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2326337/2326337_original.jpg)
Window.
![Img_9646 Img_9646](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2326687/2326687_original.jpg)
Wall detail.
![Img_9650 Img_9650](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2326814/2326814_original.jpg)
I haven't seen an outdoor oven before. This is behind the workroom chimney.
In about 1888 the Blundells had a bread oven built on to the east wall of the cottage. ![Img_9657 Img_9657](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2327250/2327250_original.jpg)
Chimneys for work room and parlour.
![Img_9579 Img_9579](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/4489254/2322963/2322963_original.jpg)
This long bit at the back is the kitchen and office room.