Name/TitleCarcoar & District Historical Society Collection
About this objectThe Carcoar & District Historical Society (CDHS) occupies an important position in Carcoar’s museum community. Unlike many historical collections, which are held in buildings with little inherent heritage value of their own, these historical collections are housed in historically significant buildings in their own right. Indeed, an important component of the CDHS’s historical collection - the court room furniture and fittings group - is provenanced to and remains in the room and building in which it was originally used. In this it shares a niche also occupied by the Carcoar Hospital Museum (CHM), housed in the former Carcoar District Hospital. That the CDHS and CHM collections are situated in buildings closely associated with Carcoar’s early history enhances their importance. The buildings, constructed in c.1849 and 1882, remain virtually intact on their original sites in central Carcoar.
The CDHS collection consists of agricultural and industrial equipment, domestic equipment, medical items, military heritage (on loan from Lyndhurst RSL Sub-Branch), official and ceremonial items, photographs and archival documents, and archaeological materials associated with the Junction Reefs Mines. The collection dates variously to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Effectively illustrating the agricultural / mining technologies and domestic material culture of the past, the CDHS museums illuminate the history both of the Carcoar community and of agricultural, industrial and social practices throughout New South Wales. The CDHS occupies two major Carcoar historical sites - Stoke Stable and the Carcoar Court House. Stoke Stable, one of the earliest extant buildings in the town and of convict construction, is linked inextricably with the wider history of the contribution of convicts to New South Wales and is an echo of the era of the town’s foundation. The Court House, designed by Colonial Architect James Barnet, was from its early days one of the most important institutions in the Carcoar community and visually dominates the centre of Carcoar. Carcoar’s relationship with the New South Wales Government has at times been a turbulent one, illustrated by the Court House’s original court room furniture, retained in spite of attempts by the State Government to remove the collection to Blayney during the mid-twentieth century. Rev. James Adam, the builder of the first Presbyterian church in the district and a man well respected by all denominations locally, is represented in the collection by two highly significant illuminated addresses, including one bearing four magnificently painted panels depicting local churches. Agriculture and mining contributed much to Carcoar’s economy and growth, with agriculture remaining the district’s mainstay, and the two industries are effectively illuminated via the archaeological remains recovered at Junction Reefs Mine and the machinery and tools displayed at Stoke Stable. Having the potential to tell many of the stories of Carcoar through objects, photographs and interpretive panels, the CDHS should help to shed light on NSW historical themes relating to convict history, agriculture and pastoralism, communication, commerce and industry, mining, transport, law and order, domestic life, and religion.
The CDHS collections are historically, aesthetically, scientifically and socially significant. Some of the items held by the Court House remain displayed in their original context, enhancing the interpretive value of both the collection and the building itself. The condition of the collection varies considerably, from the corroded machinery displayed outside both buildings to the intact and in situ group of furniture and fittings situated within the Court House. Both sites hold archaeological potential, both in the ground-surface deposits beneath the Court House’s extant floorboards and in sub-soil deposits throughout Stoke Stable’s grounds
Kim Tuovinen 2010
