The building
Stone and timber
A stone base, a timber upper floor and an iron roof that rattles in the rain. Here's what we know about the building on Bair Street, and what we've guessed.
Before it was a dining room
A produce store on a corner
The building began as a produce store, where farmers brought cream, eggs and butter to be weighed and sent on their way. The stone base kept the ground floor cool in summer and dry in winter, and the timber upper floor held offices, a scale room and, according to the delivery dockets we found under the boards, an alarming number of sacks.
When the store closed, it was used for a while as a workshop, then as a hall, then as nothing much at all. By the time I came along, the roof had a few holes, the windows had been boarded and a family of possums had moved into the stairwell. They've since been politely evicted, and one still visits.
What we kept
Four things we didn't touch
The stone base
The lower walls are local stone, laid by hand, and they're thicker than a person's arm is long. They keep the dining room cool in summer and warm in winter, and they hold the sound of a busy room in a way that no modern wall could. We scrubbed them, pointed a few gaps and left everything else alone.
The scale room
Upstairs is the old scale room, where the produce was weighed before it went to market. The great iron scale is still there, bolted to the floor, and nobody has found a way to move it. It's now a private corner for small dinners, with the scale as a centrepiece and a table around it.
The iron roof
The roof is corrugated iron, the same sheets that went up when the store was built, with a few patched where the possums got in. In heavy rain it sounds like applause, and the regulars say it's the best soundtrack the house could have. We have never been tempted to insulate it.
The delivery dockets
Under the floorboards we found a bundle of delivery dockets, tied with string, listing cream, eggs and butter in a careful hand. They're framed in the front hall now, and the oldest regulars sometimes stop and read them aloud, naming the farms. One docket carries the name of Mum's family.
In the building
