HOMES Australian Country 53These pages: Steph and Charles have lived at Bowsden since their marriage and they have raised their
three adult sons in the historic environment of convict-built stone buildings and pastoral traditions.however, must have been made of strong
stuff as she soldiered on with a cork
prosthesis, travelling all over Tasmania
and even to Twofold Bay in NSW visiting
friends. She was also an accomplished artist
and examples of her work are in Hobart’s
Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts
and the Mitchell Library in Sydney.
Life at Bowsden, which Dr Hudspeth
named after his home village in
Northumberland, was never dull. Given
it’s now a short trip north from Hobart
on the Midland Highway, it’s worth
remembering that bullock teams averaged
15 miles (24 kilometres) a day, stretching
the modern one-hour journey into a
three- or four-day exercise. Along the
way the Hudspeths camped with the
road gangs, or at the homesteads of other
settlers along the way. Bushfi res were
a constant threat, as were snake bite,
accident and illness. On one occasion, the
entire chicken population was wiped out
by Tassie devils and on another, a storm
decimated the potatoes and the cattle
got in and trampled the rest to mash.
Bushrangers, mainly escaped convicts
from the gangs working on the road to
Launceston, were responsible for constant
burglaries and on one occasion the doctor
was called out on false pretenses and
returned to fi nd “his place robbed of
everything valuable”. In June 1824 a Mrs
Osbourne came to stay after her husband
had been killed by Aboriginals and seven
years later, Julia Anstey, the daughter of
the Oatlands Police Magistrate also found
solace with the family after she had been
raped by convicts assigned to her father.
The fi rst homestead on Bowsden was a
modest pise construction with a wattle and
daub partition dividing the two rooms. The
fi replace was made from bricks fi red on the
farm and the roof was thatched and tied
with bark from trees on the property. The
Hudspeths’ original holding was expanded
to 3000 acres and later another 1000 acres
were granted near Andover. This property
was named Lowick after Mary Hudspeth’s
home village. Work on the present
house commenced around 1834, but
unfortunately the good doctor didn’t have
much time to enjoy his new surroundings
as he succumbed to the many stresses of
the pioneer life and was admitted to New
Norfolk mental asylum, where he died in ›