Historic map of Dandenong

This is quite awesome. One of the gents who runs the Springvale Historical Society bought this in to show us yesterday. It’s a hand drawn map of Dandenong by our very own Robert Woodcock, the gent who owned Laurel Lodge last century. You can clearly see how Dandenong was broken up back then and all of the local street names can be found as the last names of people who own the various properties. You can even see the road where we are (in the second shot) but oddly enough, Mr Woodcock didn’t mark his property on the map.

We love the old brown of the paper (wonder what colour it was originally?) and the fact there are a number of ink drops on them. Did Nellie get too close to her father’s desk as he was drawing the map? We’ll never know, but still, it’s so wonderful to be able to see such history so close up.

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The Enterprise rose story

As it’s coming into spring and the garden is blooming, today we thought we’d share a story that at it’s very essence is about communities, migration and home, all memorialized in a very special plant.

The Enterprise Migrant Hostel in Springvale provided accommodation and comprehensive settlement services for migrants and refugees. Except for a three year closure from 1985–1988, it was open from 1970–1992 and was home to more than 30,000 migrants and refugees from all over the world.

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Happy International Museum Day our friends!

Did you know, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) established International Museum Day in 1977 to encourage public awareness of the role of museums in the development of society.

As Heritage Hill is, amongst other things, a museum, we have a warm fluffy feeling in our hearts today knowing that all around the world, people are celebrating the role museums have as keepers of culture, repositories of history and investigators of the future.

Today, Melbourne Museum flagged a beautiful comment on their Twitter stream. A young woman had written “I heart museums because visiting is often like time-travel”. Museums allow you to get up close and personal with history, reminding visitors where we, as a society, culture and civilisation, have come from.

In the spirit of today’s international celebration, we thought we’d wander through our collection and highlight some of the tiny details that connect us, the viewers, with people and lives of years gone by.

 

Laurel Lodge’s butter pat

Home made lemon cordial

Detail of a lady’s hat in Laurel Lodge

A long empty jar that once held honey

Another iron from the laundry, an older one than the other

A beautiful glass citrus squeezer

Benga’s front door knocker

Handmade netting to keep the flies out of the food. This one has an unusual wire rim to keep it stiff

Dr Hart’s phone. As he was one of the local doctors, he had a phone that connected straight to his medical practice for emergencies.

A plant on the upstairs landing of Laurel Lodge

When eletric stoves were first introduced, there was a flurry of recipe books published to help housewives adjust to the change. This one was published by an electric cooker company

Stained glass surrounding the front door of Benga

A beautiful pattern created from inlaid wood on an occasional table

Some old tins in the kitchen

A hand crocheted tea cosy of garden flowers

Our Singer sewing machine complete with painted roses

One of our irons

 

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And then the city (Broken City Lab)

A few days ago we discovered an artistic collective based in Windsor, Ontario in Canada, called Broken City Lab. They focus on exploring and revealing the narratives of cities via interviews with locals, research into histories and interactive events. This is from their website: Our projects, events, workshops, performances, and interventions offer a sometimes momentary, sometimes extended, injection of creativity into a situation, surface, place, or community. These projects continually connect various disciplines through research and social practice, generating works and interventionist tactics that adjust, critique, annotate, and re-imagine the city that we encounter.

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The ANZAC biscuit and it’s history

Yesterday was ANZAC day, a day of remembrance for Australia and New Zealand. Originally it was to remember the troops of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought and died at Gallipoli, but it has grown to encompass all who have served and died for the two countries in all the wars we have fought. One tradition associated with ANZAC day is ANZAC biscuits, so today we’re going to have a look at the history of these chewy, tasty treats. There’s more to it than you might know.

During the first world war, soldiers rations included a biscuit known as ANZAC Wafer or ANZAC Tile which was akin to Hard Tack – a hard bread substitute which has a very long shelf life. The Tiles were so hard they prompted a Lieutenant A L Dardel in 1915 to comment that “the man who can eat Gallipoli stodge (called bread) can eat anything… somebody will break his neck someday wandering round with his eyes shut and his teeth clenched on a biscuit trying to bite it through”. To make them more palatable, soldiers often broke them up and cooked them with water to make a kind of porridge.

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Soncha’s White Dress, a garment layered with history, love and tradition

Soncha Iacono is a Melbourne artist who is a Heritage Hill regular.
Last time she was here, she was wearing an amazing white skirt, layers upon layers of different laces, doilies and scraps of fabric. I asked her about the history behind it and the story was so beautiful that I wanted to share it with you. It speaks of love through generations, of passing on skills and traditions, of keeping old memories close while forging new ones and it represents the coming together of a number of strong, amazing women in material form.

Since we’re coming up to International Women’s Day (March 8), this seems the perfect opportunity to introduce you to Soncha Iacono’s White Dress.

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The Reanimation Library

We’ve just stumbled across this great resource called The Reanimation Library (via one of our followers – Thanks Kevin!). My first thought, upon reading the title, was it had something to do with horror, or scrapbooking.

But instead, the Reanimation Library is a really interesting project where the organisers rescue visually interesting books that have been thrown out (via op shops, garage sales or found in the street) and put them back into circulation as a resource for writers, artists, academics and other interested people.

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The historical and botanical significance of the Springvale cemetery

Today there’s a great write up in The Age newspaper about Dr Celestina Sagazio, historian and manager of cultural heritage at the Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust. The article focuses on the history of the cemetery and some of the famous people who are buried in there. You can read more about it here.

We’re really excited that this article has been published now, as Dr Sagazio is doing the a talk about the historical and botanical significance of the Springvale cemetery here in a week’s time and for only $12. The details are below:

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A Christmas Old Fashioned and Merry

What are you doing for your food this festive season? The Clarks picnicking outside Laurel Lodge in the early 1900s.

My idea for this post was to go back to one of the old recipe books in the collection to examine what earlier generations created for Christmas meals. Usually, in Australia, traditional Christmas food are inherited from the United Kingdom, thus you find recipes extolling the virtues of roasting duck or chicken and vegetables in temperatures that are similar to the temperatures outside. Back then there was no affordance given for the fact that Christmas in Australia falls smack bang in the middle of Summer, when it’s hot enough in the kitchen without putting the oven on for hours at a time.

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Historical sleuthing

Today marks a passing of history. For many years, Benga house had a persimmon tree in it’s front garden, with a beautiful seat around it which was a rather comfy place to sit and eat lunch. It’s been sick for a number of years and last week it was finally decided that it had to go.

Our volunteers Maria and Ernie under the Persimmon tree

I had read somewhere in our documents a passing reference to the fact that the tree was the only link back to the orchard that stood on the property before the Hart’s built their house here. So I decided to do some sleuthing to see if that was correct. Off to the photo files!

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