Stanton Bed & Breakfast

When our good friend and photographer, Alan Lesheim, visited to take these shots, we had trouble in moving beyond the garden after placing the cane lounge in front of the lilac tree.

I suggested bringing some glasses and a nice bottle of something as props, but Alan reckoned that we’d never get anything done if that happened (either that or the photo would have been slightly askew and with a few empties in the foreground!)

We also had trouble keeping Sam, the wonderful one-eyed white dog, out of shot, since he’s always up for a party.

Maybe a few words about Sam … we inherited this super-affectionate pooch with the house, since the previous owner couldn’t take him with her, and we didn’t have a dog at the time.

My concerns about dogs, guests and B&Bs generally were completely laid to rest when this white bundle gently turned himself inside out for a pat, and his tail became in serious danger of detaching permanently in its wild delight at attention.

At a guess, he is about nine years old, and a cross between a golden retriever and a border collie. He’d had a busy life as a working sheep dog, but is now confined to supervising when the sheep are being moved by other, non-retired dogs.

Since we came to Stanton in September 2003, a few things have changed in Sam’s life. He no longer has one of his eyes (a victim of skin cancer) or his manhood (don’t know if this is correct terminology, but you get the drift). The removal of the one has meant a cessation of a lot of pain and irritation, the removal of the other a cessation of a lot of wandering and irritation.

Either way, he has bounced back, put on weight (he is a Jenny Craig dog at the moment), and leads a “Golden Pond” type existence, only enhanced by the constant stream of adoring visitors.

“Yes, this is a photo of where we stayed in the Derwent Valley. ‘Stanton’ it’s called, and that’s Sam.” Don’t laugh, guests have returned to the house, simply because they hadn’t taken his photo!

One’s first glimpse of Stanton from Back River Road is through large stands of Macrocarpas, thoughtfully planted many years ago to shield the house from wind and prying eyes.

When that wind is absent, the front dam reflects whatever season is in vogue - in this case spring, with the pink of the nectarine and quince blossoms mingling with the lacy white of the plum, all contrasting nicely with the many greens in the surrounding hills, and the vibrant colours of the sky.

The relatively recent addition of traditional post-and-rail fences around the house itself maintains a discreet but definite distance between our lawns and shrubs and the ever-grazing white fluffy predators, without whom admittedly, the remaining 15 acres would quickly become overgrown.

Tasmania and the Derwent Valley is no different to many other parts of Australia, in that water has always been a precious commodity. Visitors are often surprised to learn that Hobart is the second driest capital in Australia, and since Stanton lies at the southernmost edge of the oft drought-ridden Midlands, we have to be careful in summer (no worries with the house supply, though, since town water means we never run out!).

We are fortunate that the property has two dams and a waterhole, fed by a spring which burbles and gushes pleasantly through the paddocks and down to the front dam in the spring or after good rain. In this event our frog chorus is worthy of Tabernacle Choir status.

We recommend a stroll around the place, and it is possible to do a circuit from the house, down to the front dam, then across the creek and up through the macrocarpas and paddocks, to the larger dam at the back of the property, and then back to the house past the orchards and hawthorn avenue.

Gumboots available if required!

Sam the white dog may well be your escort, and unless you’re carrying a likely-looking bucket, the sheep will scarper at your approach.

Thomas Shone at Stanton

Here is the potted history I’ve been promising (threatening?) to write for ages.

Anything to get my web master off my back … also I thought it was appropriate that it be written as we approach the property’s 190th birthday this December.

On 23rd December 1816, Thomas Shone arrived in the Derwent Valley, at what was to become the property Stanton.

Thomas came from Sydney, having served four years of a sentence for passing a forged note in Shrewsbury, England, where he worked in a solicitors’ office.

His pardon came gift-wrapped with a 60 acre land grant and three convicts, and with the Van Diemen’s Land hierarchy trying to ‘domesticate’ the areas outside of Hobart Town, Shone was given a wooded tract of land just outside of the fledgling township of New Norfolk.

This area had been settled largely by free settlers from Norfolk Island, displaced by that island’s closure as a convict ‘depot’ in 1808.

The area still is home to the descendants of these rugged individuals.

The name ‘Stanton’ was chosen by Thomas as an acknowledgement of his home village of Stanton-upon-Hine, in the old county of Salop, England.

He wasted no time in clearing land, erecting rough fencing for stock, finding a water supply (the area now known as Magra was originally called Back River, after the small river near Stanton) and erecting rough shelters.

Lil and Amy Shone with cousin Florenza in the middle

Using a north/south alignment (as was the custom in England), a house site was chosen on gently sloping land above a spring creek, surrounded by hills, and facing towards the opening to this ‘hidden’ valley.

The bricks were made by the convicts on the property, and the two-storey Georgian Stanton dates from the following year, 1817.

There is some evidence that the front of the house may have been built first, and then when more bricks and money became available, the back sloping section was added.

The original kitchen was a separate building at the rear, and a variety of outbuildings were erected nearby, including an oast house, stables, shearing sheds and quarters, barns, and smaller homes for other family members and retainers.

The ravages of bushfires through the 19th century have meant that these have disappeared, but thankfully the home itself was saved.

Bushfires remain a threat, and as recently as January 2003, a helicopter was uplifting water from Stanton’s largest dam to help in saving neighbouring properties.

A subsequent additional land grant of 60 acres, and Shone’s success at raising sheep and cattle, and growing wheat, barley, hops, vegetables and soft fruits, meant that he was in a position to purchase further land totalling approximately 200 acres in the Back River area.

(He also owned farms at Ouse and further along the Derwent towards present day Bridgewater.)

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