Stanton Bed & Breakfast

Minnie Estelle Shone [December 20 1911]

The Shones’ success as farmers did not escape the attention of bushranger Martin Cash.

This Irish convict had been at Norfolk Island, escaped from Port Arthur, and ranged around the southern parts of the Midlands and Hobart with his gang members Jones and Cavanagh.

Cash’s Cave remains in the heavily bushed gully in the hills behind Stanton, and it was from here that he watched the property until, in February 1843, during an afternoon social gathering, he and his gang kidnapped a neighbouring farmer, James Bradshaw, and used his identity to gain entrance to the house.

Once inside, they herded the family, servants and friends into the living room, until 16 people were at gunpoint.

Removing valuables from their person and from the house, the Cash gang made off back into the hills, eventually being captured finally in August of that year, after a celebrated foot chase through the streets of Hobart.

This robbery is celebrated in Cash’s autobiography, and is the subject of a chapter of Frank Clunes’ book, Martin Cash (1955).

An interesting postscript to the event is that, during the enquiry into the robbery, the presiding magistrate decided that ‘Thomas Shone is not a fit and proper person to be supervising convict labour, and they will therefore be removed.’

Shone understandably petitioned his innocence, the crux of the matter seeming to be that the powers-that-be suspected Shone of at worst complicity, at best sympathy, with the bushrangers, and that he was not deemed to have put up a sufficient fight during the robbery.

Shone protested that he and his family and friends were at gunpoint, the bushrangers took many things of value from the house, and what else was he supposed to do?! Authority won out, and Shone lost his convicts.

Amy and Lil

Thomas Shone’s family owned Stanton until 1935, when the three brothers who conjointly owned the property, decided to sell up.

But … by the terms of their father’s will, they were bound to allow their mother and any unmarried sisters to have the use of the house until such time as they died, remarried or chose not to reside there.

By 1935, their mother had passed on, but two spinster sisters remained.

Their solution was to sell to a distant cousin, James Cockerill, but with very strict provisos regarding the division of the house — the Shone sisters had the use of the sitting and dining rooms downstairs, and the three bedrooms across the front of the house.

The Cockerill family lived in the three back bedrooms, and the two larger rooms downstairs, with all residents of the house having common use of the front hall and staircase.

Eventually (in their 90s!) one of the sisters passed away and the other moved into New Norfolk, and the Cockerills gained the use of the entire house.

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