On Saturday we went for a walk to the historic Duntroon Dairy. This is one of the oldest buildings in Canberra, dating back to the early 1830s. It provided dairy products to the early settlers on the Limestone Plains, where Canberra would be built, starting some 80 years later. Over the years a lot of other structures were built on the site; houses, feed pens, milking sheds, even a tennis court. The last people to live here left in the 1960s and the site slowly decayed. The other buildings were demolished and all that is left now are the concrete floors and foundations. The old dairy was restored around 2004 and is on the Register of the National Trust. The building is locked except on special occasions, so I couldn't see the most interesting thing about it. The dairy is built from the stone cut from the hill to make the platform it is on and the walls are around 60 cm thick. There is also a deep well inside the building, built of unmortared bricks. Water seeps into the well and keeps the dairy cool and humid, just right for storing milk, butter and cheese in the days before fridges. I really would like to have seen the place in the days when it was in full operation.
Labels: buildings, Canberra
# posted by Bart Bear @ 5:57 pm
