Abercrombie House

Last weekend we visited Bathurst, one of the towns in the Central West of NSW. Since the children are now quite intrigued by historic homes, we visited Abercrombie House. Located on the outskirts of Bathurst, it is currently lived in and owned by the Morgan family - who have spent the past 30 years restoring and filling their home with an eclectic variety of interesting furniture and decorations. They kindly open for tours, which are led by son Christopher (a well-spoken and friendly fellow) who is able to tell many interesting stories and give out much historical information.

The house is huge! Three stories, more than 40 rooms, 29 fireplaces, 7 staircases, and a ballroom with a ceiling 8.5m high. It was built by Lieutenant-Governor William Stewart on the first land grant west of the Macquarie River, which was issued to him in 1827. Christopher Morgan relayed a lovely story about Stewart really wanting a land grant in Parramatta, but not wanting to tarnish his reputation by taking prime land whilst he was in charge. He saw all the grants taken, which must have been difficult, but afterwards was told to 'get out to Bathurst and choose some land there', which he did.


Abercrombie House has Scottish Baronial/Gothic style architecture, which seems an unusual design for Australian colonial days, and was built from granite already on site. It has a slate roof. The round tower incorporates a spiral iron staircase. I think that's the one that the children said reminded them of a lighthouse...and which made me a little dizzy! Very much enjoyed the tour, and the house.



Two snippets of trivia:-

One of the windows has a bullet hole through it. During WW11 some Land Army girls stayed in the house, and the bullet was fired by an over-excited soldier! It has not been repaired.

Second, the current season of Camp Orange running on Nickelodeon channel was filmed at Abercrombie House earlier this year. In the series the house is called Raven House.


Of course we couldn't leave Bathurst without seeing the Mount Panorama of car racing fame. I was very surprised at how high it was, and with the view...but Tony was quick to point out that we were in fact, on a mountain!