Stanton Bed & Breakfast

Walter Stone (grandmother Morey’s brother) down in the orchard

Around 1940, the 2 storey wooden verandahs were added to Stanton, and unfortunately paint was applied to the beautiful honey-coloured bricks.

We have restored the verandahs, but removing the paint has been put in the ‘too hard’ basket for now - convict bricks are notoriously brittle and the cure may be worse than the disease.

The Cockerills remained at Stanton until 1988, when the house and its remaining 16.5 acres were purchased by Ian & Bev Rumley from Bushy Park.

Much work was required to halt the building’s decline and the Rumleys were responsible for building the sympathetic outbuildings and single storey extension of today, and with their convict brick facings and period fittings forming a sort of courtyard, they mirror what was a common arrangement of buildings in working properties.

For Stanton was always that - not a grand manor house like Tynwald, no history of being a large and prosperous inn like Glen Derwent, no huge estate like Askrigg, Stanton was a family property, prosperous yes, but always full of life, love, children and music.

Being the owners of a property with such a long history is wonderful - we still pinch ourselves to believe that we live here.

But it is also a huge responsibility, not just to the past, but to the future.

We have met so many descendants of the Shone family, and are friends with the Cockerill/Burn families, that it is almost like having extra families.

Indeed when tracing the Shone family tree, it occasionally feels like mine! It has been an honour to open the house to the public for the first time in its history, and we derive much joy from watching guests’ faces when they realise that they are actually going to sleep in one of the oldest houses in Australia.

It still blows me away too.

A family gathering