Visit to local historic house

Lydham Hall plaque

Yesterday I took the kids to visit this historic house in Bexley, a Southern suburb of Sydney.  We were the only ones there so lucky enough to get a private guided tour by the local preservation society volunteer.  While not the most extravagent historic house I have visited, it was still pretty interesting. 

The house was built in 1855 for a wealthy local butcher called Joseph Davis.  However it is most well known for being the former home of semi-famous Australian writer, Christina Stead, who had a very unhappy childhood there (which shouldn't surprise anyone who has read her novels):

The Man Who Loved Children (Flamingo Modern Classic)

Christina Stead

For Love Alone (Virago Modern Classics)

Christina Stead

Stead's mother died when she was two years old so she mostly lived in this house with her father, David (or Davis?) Stead, "a Fabian socialist and eminent naturalist" and stepmother, Ada Gibbons (with whom she didn't get along well) and their children. 

(source: Books and Writers )

Here are some photos I took yesterday:

Lydham hall from street

Originally the house had a huge circular driveway at the front.  This is all road and housing now. 

Lydham hall doorbell

This also shows the local sandstone from which the house is constructed.

Lydham Hall - view to Botany bay

This is the view from the rear upstairs window.  You can see the fountain and the tops of the magnolia trees in the back garden.  Previously this would have been a clear view to Botany Bay.  (For anyone familiar with the local area, you can just make out the Novotel at Brighton Le Sands in the background). 

Lydham Hall - pump it

The kids were pretty interested in the fact that there was no bathroom in the house.  The volunteer guide showed them some chamber pots in a bedside cupboard which prompted my daughter to ask what husbands and wives sharing a room did if they needed to go to the chamber pot in the night.  The guide didn't know the answer to that and now I am wondering myself.  Maybe wealthy husband and wives didn't even sleep in the same bedroom in the 1800s?  Anyone know?