Not really sure how I’m going to fare selling you this week’s attraction Jarrod, because Historic Homesteads are not really your thing. You tend to veer well away from anything that involves a) period dress, b) couches you can’t put your feet up on, and c) any era that involves phrases like “now listen here, old chap!” But after a harrowing weekend away in Ararat, frankly it was time for me to do some traipsing through pretty gardens! Also, I’m mad for an Open for Inspection so the prospect of skulking about a mansion and checking out the décor of long gone strangers was something I was well up for.
1870’s Open for Inspection. Don’t mind if we do!
Believe it or not, at the time of this blog write up, Werribee Mansion rates as Trip Advisor’s # 1 thing to do in Werribee, and you can imagine there is some pret-ty stiff competition there. It trumped not only the Open Range Zoo (which came in at #3), but also Werribee plaza, the 1kg steak challenge at Outback Jacks, and swimming at Campbell’s Cove nudist beach–which (gasp) didn’t even attain a ranking.
Early examples of very pretty crop circles
This week my little sister Caitlin got her second guernsey as blog partner in crime, and we also took along her two girls Millie (7) and Grace (5) for invaluable, brutally honest ‘straight out of the mouths of babes’ feedback. Like almost every girl of the same age, they are completely wild for the Disney film ‘Frozen,’ so any structure that falls short of Elsa’s ice castle runs the risk of severely underwhelming them.
Yeah, but was it built by one girl with the power to produce ice and snow with her bare hands?
For those unfamiliar, Werribee Mansion is located ~a 30min drive west of Melbourne. There’s the historic mansion, a huge rose garden just adjacent, and also a boutique hotel/spa/function centre on the site. Entrance to the 10 hectares of gardens that surround the mansion is free but to access the mansion itself costs $29 for a family of four. Having paid our fee we are presented with what I call Standard Museum Conundrum: do we want to spring for the guided tour or an audioguide? We deliberate briefly…on the one hand, a guide would actually impart historically correct information. On the other hand, both Cait and I are mad for any TV series in the Frock and Bonnet Genre. We’ve had Downtown Abbey marathons, smashed through whole seasons of Upstairs/Downstairs in single sittings and seen all the Austen adaptations. No brainer. Why pay when we can make up our own guide as we go? We shake our heads politely but firmly, and tell the volunteer manning the entrance “as they would have said back in the 1800’s: NO DEAL *crossing forearms in Deal or No Deal fashion* Don’t worry, lady. We’ve got this.”
She looks fittingly doubtful and we proceed inside.
As you can see, the entrance hall to the Mansion is austere and impressive. It’s lined both sides with busts that depict how stern and/or melancholy people of the time were. (To be fair though, if I had to sit for a bust sculpture session, I would struggle to maintain a smile too. Waiting 10 seconds for a photo taken on self-timer is annoying enough).
First impressions are paramount.
The hall leads to a grand staircase and we explain to the girls that this is obviously where the ladies of the time would make their dramatic entrance after their classic makeover montage. A young gentleman would arrive at 7 (a bundle of nerves) to pick up his date. He would be, met with a stern warning from the young lady’s father and strict instructions to “have her home by ten.” His date would appear, and take his breath away. Such beauty–who knew she was that gorgeous without her glasses on?–but by the time she made her sweeping procession down the staircase, down, down, down, down–he’d look at his watch and say “bloody hell, that’s great. It’s 9:55. We’ve only got five minutes now.”
Sliding down the bannister rail: temptation personified.
From there we amble into the lounge room and we’re met with our first disappointment. You can’t actually sit anywhere! The rooms are all roped off for observation only. In any case, we ask the girls to locate the TV and they scan the room frantically, much like judges on The Block who are expecting the enormous flatscreen to emerge from a concealed space. We drop the bombshell that there was NO TV back in these days and Millie outright swoons as though she might faint. Minds blown.
Lots of pretty things = distraction from the fact that as a lady you couldn’t work, or vote, or….
What did they do then? Well, we point out: observe how the couches are arranged to facilitate bitchy cloisters. The ladies would read, and listen to music, contemplate their marriage prospects, and do needlepoint without thimbles, deliberately pricking their fingers till they drew blood just to make sure that they could just feel something, ANYTHING to distract them from the mind numbing tedium.
Certainly no swinging from chandeliers.
Fifteen minutes into our guided tour, Millie spots a sign to the cafeteria, (damned education–teaching her to read!) and the pained and highly repetitive chant “I’m star-ving, can we get something to eat?” kicks off. We draw their attention to the cupboard under the stairs where the naughty children would have been locked away in the dark. They are suitably chilled and it buys us ten minutes of peace.
Naughty child hutch, way before Harry Potter made it fashionable
There’s a Pool Room, well actually, I’m not sure if you would call it a Pool Room or a Carcass Hall because while it houses a pool table, its dominant role seems to be the display of every variety of dead animal imaginable. On the floor alone there are bear skins, leapord skins, lion skins, zebra skins, and a stool made out of an elephant foot. The walls are crammed with deer heads mounted on boards. (As is just about every hall in the mansion. You couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a dead deer. And based on the pool room, I’m willing to bet cat swinging was a pastime). There don’t appear to be any doilies or coasters, but I’d wager that if you opened a drawer they would have tiny guinea pig pelts for that very purpose. Grace is bewildered as to why they would have hunted and skinned all the animals. We explain to her that back in the olden days, you couldn’t buy pointless framed sporting memorabilia, so this was the only way that a man could demonstrate just how big an asshole he was.
I can ravish you on the bearskin rug, or the leopardskin rug, or the zebraskin rug, or the lionskin rug. What I’m saying is: with me, you have options.
What else do we see? There’s a display of late 1800’s costumery including a corset to achieve a tiny, tiny waist. So many questions!!! Why did they do that? It was desirable back then to have a tiny waist. It’s called an hourglass figure. Why? Well, I don’t know. I guess when they swallowed sand they wanted to stop it passing straight through them like a Baby Alive doll. How does it make your waist small? It takes all your internal organs and SQUISHES them until they meld into one entity, so you have a lung that also manages your digestion, releases insulin and cleanses your blood. And then your family despairs and wonders why you die inexplicably at the tender age of 35.
Upstairs we tour the various bedrooms. So. Much. Floral. It’s like a Laura Ashley store exploded and all the debris freakishly landed in this one mansion. We don’t explain this to the girls, but just quietly–Caitlin and I marvel that men of this time could even attain, let alone maintain an erection with so much frill, floral and fauna. Not to mention the nightwear and the bonnets. My bonnet is off to you if you can make a bonnet look remotely sexy. Little wonder the men needed their pool rooms to be such a celebration of butch.
It was such a downright steamy evening her bonnet wound up slightly askew.
Cries of “I’m starving” and active seeking out of the cafeteria begin again on the part of Millie and Grace so we take them outside to run around in very unladylike fashion.
A lady doesn’t run. It makes one dishevelled.
Meanwhile I go roaming for pretty pictures.
Then we give in and buy them icy poles.
We’re curious as to their thoughts. Were they swept up by the scale and grandeur of the place? Would they like to have been ladies in the late 1800’s and lived in a big house like this?
Grace’s very sage verdict: “No Way. There was no TV. And it would be boring because all you could do was walk around the gardens. And there were no freezers so there would be no icy poles.”
Give me current creature comforts like lemonade icy poles ANY DAY.
So that’s your niece’s two cents Jarrod, but what are your thoughts: Werribee Mansion–Jarrod, would you go there?
Hi Meg
‘Out of the mouths of babes’…’ Where’s the canteen !!! ‘
Beyond that, clearly had their imaginations running as wild as them.
and some trivia for you, did you know that the mansion also used to be the Melbourne seminary / training ground for priests ??
Bet the motel rooms are more plush than where this was the case.
Confident Jarrod would have loved the farm related activities of the site, but as for the facility itself, like me, could not see him in ‘frilly’ bedsheets, period furniture etc
Another great read.
Well done x