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 | This hut was the original home of John and Emily Mayes, the founders of this property. Most of the slabs were cut from the outer timbers of large logs. Those logs would have been cut on the property, by axe and wedge, then trimmed with an adze. The original roof was made of bark and was later replaced with shingles. When the house was completed in 1887, the family moved and the hut became a shelter for a buggy and much later a car. As an example of the craftsmanship involved, lan Rohl remembers that the hut was still secure against rain and the wind sixty years after it was built. You might think that this was a hard way for a family to live, especially when there was little here but scrub. Emily cooked on an open fire and used a hollowed-out anthill as an oven. Consider then what John and Emily had left behind. John had been employed as a gardener on an estate in Bedfordshire England, while his wife worked as a house servant. There, they had little to look forward to but a life of uncertain servitude. Here, in Australia they owned 320 acres, an unheard of opportunity back in England.
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