Then and now – the dining room at Elizabeth Bay House part 2

Detail of the the dining room at Elizabeth Bay House 11 August 1987. Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Sydney Living Museums. Photo Andrew Payne Photographix

This week we’re back at Elizabeth Bay House, in one of Sydney’s grandest dining rooms. After the departure of the Macleays, Macarthur-Onslows and Michaelises, its years as a reception house and then as flats, the ‘Lion of Sydney’ began its new life as a house museum. But, as this continuing ‘Then and Now’ series shows, it certainly wasn’t without controversy!

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A bit on the side

Table setting at Rouse Hill House & Farm with a folded napkin held in the wine glass. Photo (c) Scott Hill for Sydney Living Museums

If you’re out at Rouse Hill this weekend for the Autumn Harvest you may see the dining table set with some unusually-shaped dishes, can you guess what they’re for? Continue reading

Eat your history – the book!

Jacqui Newling, author of Eat your history: stories and recipes from Australian kitchens Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums

Handwritten recipes passed through the generations, tales of goats running wild in colonial gardens and early settlers’ experimentation with native foods…
Eat your history dishes up stories and recipes for Australian kitchens and dining tables from 1788 to the 1950s.

Jacqui Newling, resident gastronomer at Sydney Living Museums, invites you to share forgotten tastes and lost techniques, and to rediscover some delicious culinary treasures. Continue reading

Then and now – the dining room at Elizabeth Farm

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