Australian Traveller – August 2019

PHOTOGRAPHY: IMOGEN EVESON (NEW ENGLAND BREWING CO., HELICOPTER INTERIOR, STEPHEN DOBSON); DESTINATION NSW (SAUMAREZ HOMESTEAD, BOOLOOMINBAH, GORGE COUNTRY)

DETAILS

Getting there

Armidale is halfway between

Brisbane and Sydney on the New

England Highway; QantasLink and

Rex fly direct from Sydney.

Staying there

LOLOMA is a boutique bed and

breakfast in the heart of Armidale.

lolomabandb.com.au

Playing there

FLEET ADVENTURES’ helicopter

tours are a thrilling way to see

the region. fleetadventures.com.au

WAYWARD TRAILS offers tasting

tours through New England and

beyond. waywardtrails.com.au

NERAM is open Tuesday to Sunday.

neram.com.au

SAUMAREZ HOMESTEAD runs

guided tours on weekends and

public holidays. nationaltrust.org.au

Visit newenglandhighcountry.com.au

for more information.

Nora Heysen, Norman Lindsay and Brett Whiteley, it

provides a comprehensive reading of Australian art history.

Around 130 pieces feature in the permanent exhibition,

HINTON: Treasures of Australian Art, a salon-style hang

that offers a vivid and absorbing insight into Hinton’s

aesthetic sensibility and the nature of his collection.

We explore the museum with our guide Sylvia, who leads

us through its other five gallery spaces and to the onsite

Museum of Printing: another quirky find full of historic

printing machinery that gets used once a week by the Black

Gully Printmakers, a group of artists who also volunteer to

open the museum to visitors on Sunday afternoons.

But Armidale’s ultimate example of living heritage is a

quick drive south-west of the CBD. A 10-hectare grazing

property that was first inhabited by British settlers led by

Henry Dumaresq in the 1830s, Saumarez played a key role

in the development of the city as the regional centre. At its

heart is the Saumarez Homestead, a two-storey, 30-room

Edwardian mansion built by the pastoralist White family

after they purchased the property in 1874. When Elsie

White, the last surviving member of the family, died in

1981 the homestead was donated to the National Trust and

conserved as an extraordinary time capsule: full to the brim

with layer upon layer of original period furnishings and

personal possessions spanning the 19th and 20th centuries.

We take a whirlwind tour with property manager Les

Davis that leaves us dumfounded. Victorian photogravure

prints hang on the walls and family mementoes remain in

situ on mantlepieces. The drawing room reveals a honey

stain above the fireplace from when a beehive blocking the

chimney was once disturbed; Art Nouveau-style furniture

and pressed-metal ceilings reveal the style of the day;

and exquisite chip carvings of the Green Man reveal the

artistic and esoteric interests of the women who lived here.

We see original Edwardian wallpaper, ceramics by Merric

Boyd made in Armidale and vases fashioned from First

World War shell casings brought back from the Western

Front. At the top of the wide cedar staircase Les opens

up a Chinese camphor wood trunk that had been jammed

shut until recently and proved to be full of dresses from

the 1920s and ’30s. “The most magnificent dresses, some

totally sheer, and in perfect condition,” he says.

Afterwards we stroll through Saumarez’s heritage rose

garden and head down to the 19th-century farm buildings

where development is underway to upgrade its rustic-chic

event spaces. Les – a font of passion and knowledge who

earlier this year was awarded an OAM for his heritage work

• divulges bigs plans for the property, including luxurious
  cabin accommodation and a honeymoon suite hidden
  in the elm trees. You get the sense that a new chapter is
  being written here too, as it is all over the New England
  High Country: a place that riffs on tradition, builds on
  its heritage, doesn’t rest on its laurels and plants so many
  wonderful surprises along the way.

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GETAWAYS | Armidale