A bee in the borage in the kitchen garden at Vaucluse House. Photo Helen Curran © Sydney Living Museums

This Sunday 11 October, Vaucluse House is celebrating its 100th anniversary as a house museum with a free community open day. It’s also the 15th birthday of our recreated Victorian kitchen garden – and it’s never looked better! Amid the spring abundance you’ll find heirloom tomatoes, tender sugar-snap peas and colonial favourites like white icicle radishes, sugar-loaf cabbages and salsify.

Then and now – the dining room at Vaucluse House

1 October 2015 The Curator 12 Comments

A romantic view of the dining room at Vaucluse House. Historic Houses Trust of NSW, Photograph (c) Haley Richardson and Stuart Miller

The centenary of Vaucluse House as a public museum – on Sunday 11th October – is fast approaching, so today I thought what better dining room to discuss than that of the Wentworths at their harbour-side ‘country house’. Continue reading →

Punch drunk on guava jelly

24 September 2015 Helen Curran Leave a comment

Cherry guavas and flowers from the kitchen garden at Vaucluse House, September 2015. Photo Helen Curran © Sydney Living Museums

There’s a special pleasure in tasting a fruit straight from the tree. Just a few months ago, the cherry guavas in the kitchen garden at Vaucluse House were tiny, unpromising-looking green orbs. This week, the first of them ripened: little rose-coloured marbles of sweet-tart deliciousness, each a perfect mouthful – and the perfect ingredient for a clear fruit jelly.

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Sea captains and shaddock jam

17 September 2015 Helen Curran Leave a comment

Citrus maxima, or shaddock (detail), colour plate from B Hoola van Nooten, Fleurs, fruits et feuillages choisis de l’ille de Java: peints d’après nature, 1880. Image courtesy Missouri Botanic Garden

In the winter months, you’ll see them dangling from the branches of a tree at the bottom of the kitchen garden at Vaucluse House, by the compost heap, like bright baubles. These days, the shaddock (also known as pomelo or pumello) is less well-known than oranges and grapefruit. But in colonial Australia, this outsized citrus was a thing of wonder. Continue reading →

Spring has sprung!

10 September 2015 The Curator 2 Comments

Damson plum blossom at Meroogal. Photo (c) Scott Hill for Sydney Living Museums

It looks like Spring has well and truly arrived at Meroogal, with the damson plum bursting into bloom by the side of the house! Continue reading →

Then and now – the dining room at Elizabeth Bay House part 1

3 September 2015 The Curator 1 Comment

Jean Gillespie with her 21st birthday cake at Elizabeth Bay House, June 1939 (detail). State Library of New South Wales, Hood collection: Home and Away - 19758

Of all the dining rooms in Sydney Living Museums properties, perhaps none have had so many incarnations as that in the Lion of Sydney – Elizabeth Bay House. Continue reading →

Custard apples and cherimoyas

20 August 2015 Helen Curran 2 Comments

Photograph of a custard apple with other fruits in a market display

A custard apple among the avocados at the Marrickville Organic Food and Farmers Market, August 2015. Photo © Helen Curran

One of the things that’s surprised me most about colonial gardens is just how exotic they were. I like to think of myself as relatively broad-palated, but when I stumbled across a list of fruits available in NSW in 1824 my jaw dropped. Apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries and plums. So far so expected. But the Chilean cherimolia and alligator pear – what on earth were those?

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Then and now – the dining room at Elizabeth Farm

12 August 2015 The Curator 1 Comment

Elizabeth Farm 'then and now'. A combination of a view from 1926, by E.G. Shaw, and one taken in 2015 by Scott Hill.

The dining rooms that visitors experience at our properties are very different: some are relatively intact, some are complete recreations, while some are evocative interpretations. Today I’m looking at the dining room at Elizabeth Farm, and how it was known by the Macarthurs, by the 20th century Swann family, and how we experience it today. Continue reading →

Please cheese me

6 August 2015 The Cook 1 Comment

This week at Elizabeth Bay House artisan cheese maker Kristen Allan hosted a workshop as part of our Colonial gastronomy series. Continue reading →

Of sideboards and serving tables – parte the seconde

30 July 2015 The Curator Leave a comment

Regency sideboard in the dining room of Leslie Walford's apartment (detail). Photo © Brenton McGeachie for Sydney Living Museums

If you were looking at sideboards for your 1830s colonial house the biggest issues you faced, apart from style and cost, was the sheer size of the thing! Perhaps a chiffonier was the answer. Continue reading →

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A kitchen garden in spring