The history of Skellatar House - introducing the Blackets

William Bowman, the older brother of the twins Edward and Andrew Bowman, had occupied for a time the old slab-walled homestead built by Sir Francis Forbes on the Skellator estate, but it was destroyed by fire, possibly in the 1870's. So a new Skellatar homestead was needed for the twins - the bachelor Edward, and Andrew, who had been married but was now a widower. They chose a Sydney firm of architects to design it.

Let's digress from the Bowman family history for a little while here, to tell you something about these architects who designed Skellatar House.

It was an architectural practice called Blacket and Son. Edmund Blacket, born in 1817, was the third Colonial Architect of New South Wales. He was appointed to this position in 1850, but he resigned in 1854 to begin private practice. He became established as a leading architect, designing the Great Hall at Sydney University, several cathedrals and more than a hundred churches, as well as schools, commercial buildings and private houses. His son Cyril, born in 1857, entered into partnership with his father, and he was elected president of the Institute of Architects, New South Wales, in 1903.

Here's an indication of how important the Blackets are considered to be. A book has been written about them by Morton Herman, in a series called "Famous Australian Lives" published by Angus & Robertson.

In Chapter 11 there's a section that deals with the design of Skellatar House, including a sample of the architect's plans. Here's a short extract:

In 1881 the Blackets designed a large country house for Andrew and Edward Bowman at Muswellbrook in the Hunter River Valley. It was very much in the nature of a working farmhouse, and the evolution of the design is curious. Edmund Blacket got out the first design, which was carried through to full working drawings ready to commence building. It was a manifestly Victorian design, but nevertheless controlled and firm in its lines. The quietude of the scheme must have caused dissatisfaction, for the next year Cyril got out a much more elaborate version with heavy ornamental woodwork to the verandas, and chimneys that could only be called wild. Although this scheme, too, was taken to full working-drawings stage it was not built. The final design shown on the contract drawings comprised exactly the same scheme except that all the heavy woodwork was replaced by lacy cast iron.

One of the Bowman twins had produced an early sketch of their requirements for the house, including a polygonal bay window in the drawing room, which was incorporated into all later plans. The original sketch, pictured left, is held in the Mitchell Library.


Whichever one of the twins made the sketch, he must have been a fairly talented fellow. They were lawyers, remember, not architects, but this looks like a very professional effort for an amateur. But it definitely says, above the drawing, 'Mr Bowman's sketch'.
As noted in the extract from Morton Herman's book, both Edmund and Cyril Blacket had a hand in the design of Skellatar House. But Edmund, the father, died suddenly in February 1883, and Cyril was responsible for the final design and acted as superintendent of the construction. The designs show a progression from a more sober Georgian-influenced style, the work of Edmund, to a full-blown late Victorian design, complete with romantic detail, as favoured by Cyril.
All three sets of Blacket plans are preserved in the Mitchell Library in Sydney. There are twelve pages of plans altogether, but here are two examples.

The floor plan is the final version, showing the ground floor of the main house, and the upper floor. Also shown are the separate kitchen and servants' quarters - once again, ground floor and upper floor. As with most houses built in this era, the kitchen is housed in a separate building because of the fire risk, and it was a very wise move, because the servants' quarters did in fact burn down in 1937. When the servants' quarters were rebuilt they were made into an attachment at the back of the house, so that the outside rear wall of the main house became an inside wall. Possibly at the same time as this rebuilding was going on, a decision was made to extend the verandah around three sides of the main house, both upstairs and downstairs - instead of the verandah around one-and-a-half sides that is shown in the floor plan. So the house as it stands today is slightly different from the original construction.

One of the most fascinating things to be found in the Mitchell Library is the original building contract, dated 20th April 1883. Attached to the contract are 18 pages of detailed, handwritten building specifications. There were meticulous instructions for the mason, for the bricklayer, for the plumber, and for the carpenter, the plasterer, the painter and the glazier. Nothing was left to chance. The page shown above gives instructions to the plumber.

There's even a list of instructions for the labourer. Here's an extract from the poor old labourer's list.

- Clear away the grass over the site of the different buildings and 20 feet beyond in every direction.
- Dig trenches for all walls 2 feet below the surface of the ground, stepped where required.
- Dig trenches for foundations of hearths, sleeper walls and verandah walls, 18 inches below the surface of the ground.
- Dig cellar as drawn in dotted lines, to the depth of 8 feet below the level of the top of base course, the trenches for walls to be one foot deeper.
- Dig trenches for 500 feet of drain pipe, 18 inches below the surface of the ground, and for 50 feet of drain pipe, 7 feet below the surface of the ground, to drain the cellar.

Remember they had no mechanical diggers in those days.
But wait, there's more. The labourer's list goes on for another half a page before it gets to the best bit:

- Dig tank as drawn, 17 feet 6 inches diameter and 17 feet deep below the surface.

So the labourer had to dig a hole 17 feet wide and 17 feet deep.
This was the cavity for an enormous brick-lined rainwater drainage tank, with a domed roof. There was a pump installed to lift the collected water into a holding tank in the roof of the house. The underground tank still exists in pristine condition, and, on the rare occasions that it rains, it still retains large quantities of water. We have estimated the capacity to be 90,000 litres. Unfortunately, only a small part of the roof area now drains into the tank.
The first page of specifications also refers to the fact the Bowmans, rather than the builder, were to supply, "all the Bricks, Joists and Rafters required in the erection of the building, also all the Locks, hinges, bell pressers, bolts and door furniture.." Further on there is a note that all stone is to come from "a quarry on the estate", and the bricks were probably made on the nearby Balmoral estate of William Bowman.

It seems that the Bowmans supplied a lot of the material that was used in the construction of Skellatar House. But it doesn't sound as if they were supplying any of the red cedar for the joinery and the kauri pine used for the floors. There's no mention of them providing the slate tiles for the roof, or the glass for the windows and the plaster and paint for the walls. So there's an awful lot of material still to be supplied by the builder, and an army of tradesmen, not to mention all that digging. Want to hazard a guess as to how much John Morrison of Sydney charged for the building of Skellatar House in 1883?

It was £2,800. Probably a small fortune then, but it's still a lot of house for the money.

The agreed completion date was 31st January 1884. The contract was signed on 20th April 1883. So this enormous building was completed in just nine months from start to finish, without all the machinery we have available today. Just sourcing all the materials and transporting them to Muswellbrook must have been a mammoth task in those days. There was no Bunnings in Maitland, no semi-trailers going up and down the New England Highway. Nine months, and just £2,800.


Click here for the conclusion of the Bowman Era of the history of Skellatar House

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The history of Skellatar House - the Forbes era

A male child called Francis Forbes was born on the island of Bermuda, on the edge of the Caribbean, in 1783. He was the elder son of Doctor Francis Forbes, a man of Scottish descent. Francis Forbes, the son, travelled from Bermuda to England at the age of 19 to study law at Lincoln's Inn in London. Later he returned to Bermuda and was appointed Attorney General there in 1810. In 1816 he became Chief Justice of the British colony of Newfoundland in North America, and then in 1823 he was appointed Chief Justice of New South Wales. He was the first Chief Justice of New South Wales - that is, the position didn't exist until he was appointed - and he arrived in the colony with his family in 1824. Around this time the British government was starting to encourage free settler migration to the colony, and the settlement of the Upper Hunter began in the following year, 1825.

Francis Forbes received a land grant of 2,560 acres from the governor, Governor Darling, and he was allowed to purchase a further 10,000 acres The original 2,560 acre Crown grant included the site of Skellatar House, although it was built long after Forbes' death. But the name comes from the name Francis Forbes gave to his estate. He named it Skellator, that's Skellator ending in o-r, after a Forbes estate near Aberdeen in Scotland. The current spelling, Skellatar, a-r, was not adopted until the lands passed into the hands of the Bowman family. Francis Forbes' brother George also came to New South Wales at this time, and he named his own nearby estate Edinglassie, after another Forbes estate in Scotland.

Francis Forbes is a very significant figure in Australian history. He was responsible for converting the legal system of New South Wales from that of a penal colony, with total legal power vested in the Governor, to that of a free settlement. He was a member of the first New South Wales Legislative Council from 1824 to 1836. And he was one of the first persons to be knighted for services to the colony. There is an historical society, based in Sydney, called 'The Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History'.



This society recognises in its name Sir Francis' contribution to the formation of the legal system in New South Wales, which later became the legal system of the nation of Australia.
There are a number of portraits of Sir Francis in the Mitchell Library
in Sydney, as well as one in the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
He looks splendid in this portrait from the Mitchell Library, every inch
the Chief Justice.


Sir Francis' government duties kept him very busy, and he had to spend most of his time in Sydney. The Skellator estate was used for sheep grazing, but it was run by Sir Francis' brother George, of Edinglassie. However, around about 1830 a slab-walled house was constructed on the Skellator estate. It had three bedrooms, a parlour, and the usual domestic outbuildings, and it stood on land that is now occupied by the Muswellbrook Water and Sewerage Works at the corner of Sydney Street and the Skellatar Stock Route.

Sir Francis was a sick man by this time, and he spent some time at his Muswellbrook house in 1834, hoping to restore his failing health. Unfortunately he didn't recover, and so he was obliged to retire from his position as Chief Justice in 1837.

He returned to the Skellator estate in 1837, and again in 1838, trying to make a success of his farming venture. But it wasn't a success, partly as a result of the Great Stock Depression in the 1830's. He died in Sydney in 1841 at the age of 58, and by 1846 the land of the Skellator estate, as well as the slab-walled house and its contents, were the subject of a mortgagee sale. His widow was left penniless, although she did eventually receive a pension from the Crown in recognition of her husband's services. Sir Francis Forbes' sons had tried to rescue the family fortunes with a plan to create a new town called Forbestown on the South Muswellbrook portion of the estate, but after the sale they moved with their mother to the Darling Downs in Queensland.

Sir Francis Forbes left an enduring legacy in Muswellbrook, which is reflected in a lot of local names - not just Skellatar House, Skellatar Street, Skellatar Stock Route, Skellatar Park Racecourse, but also Forbes Street and Francis Street.


Click here to read about the Bowman Era in the history of Skellatar House

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A virtual tour of Skellatar House - inside

We're continuing our tour of Skellatar house, through the eyes of a Victorian era visitor.

The first sight to greet our eyes would be the tessellated tile floor in the entry hall. They are probably Minton tiles, imported from England.

They are still in good condition, after more than 125 years of wear and tear.

So we're in the entry hall now, and if we looked upwards,
away from the floor, this is what we would see: late Victorian decorative plasterwork, and a cedar staircase leading to the upper storey.


We might then be invited to step into the drawing room, where we could admire the polygonal bay window....



....and if we'd been invited to dinner we'd eventually get to sit in the dining room.



If we were a house guest, invited to stay overnight, we'd go up the cedar staircase and around the turn of the stair.










Eventually, we'd arrive on the upstairs landing.....


....and we might get to sleep in this bedroom.













The bathroom arrangements in 1884 might have been rather primitive by today's standards.

But we can pretend they looked as good as this.










Skellatar House now sits on two acres of land in a suburban street on the edge of the town of Muswellbrook. Back in 1884 it was the homestead of the enormous Skellatar estate, and it was known simply as 'Skellatar', surrounded only by paddocks. The Skellatar estate covered not just the area now known as south Muswellbrook, but also a part of the area around neaby Muscle Creek.

So, in order to understand the history of Skellatar House, we need to go right back to the beginning, to the creation of the Skellatar estate, the large property on which the house once stood.

To make it easier to follow, we can divide the history of the house into three eras.

The first era, from 1835 to 1845, was the Forbes Era. This is when the Skellatar estate was created.

The second era is the longest, lasting from 1846 to 1952. This was the Bowman Era, during which the house was built and lived in as a family home.

The third era, from 1953 to 1997, was the Education Era.


Click here to go to the Forbes Era
Click here to go to the Bowman Era
Click here to go to the Eductation Era
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A virtual tour of Skellatar House - outside

Here’s a virtual tour of the outside of Skellatar House.


The part of the building in the left foreground used to be the servants' quarters, and later on it was used as a caretakers' flat.

Now it is the kitchen, with some bedrooms upstairs.





This is what it looks like on the western side.

This is a side view of the old servants' quarters, attached to the main house.

These aren't the original servants' quarters, but there'll be more on that subject later.





This is what it looks like on the eastern side.

Note the ballroom on the left.

This was a later addition.



And this is what it looks like on the northern side.

In the centre is the large and majestic front door, through which the family and their visitors would have entered the house.

They would have had the door opened for them by a butler or a maidservant, because the door can only be opened from the inside.

Click here to continue the virtual tour, this time inside

Click here to go straight to the history pages

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Welcome to Skellatar House

Skellatar House is a large country house built in 1883, high on a hill overlooking the Hunter Valley town of Muswellbrook.
Keep reading to find out more about its fascinating history.

Granville and Yvonne Taylor bought Skellatar House in March 2005, having fallen in love with it at first sight on a very rainy day just before Christmas in 2004. They didn't realise then that seeing Skellatar House in the rain was going to be a very rare event, for the next three years at least.

This is a photo taken on Bridge Street, Muswellbrook, looking southwards towards the railway bridge. You can just see a fairly large house here on the hill, with white-painted lacework on the upstairs verandah. That's Skellatar House, just behind the Mount Providence Hostel on Tindale Street.

The substantial two storey late Victorian homestead has verandahs, with cast iron supporting columns and decorative lacework, on three sides of both storeys.
Construction of the main residence was completed in 1884, with the ballroom being added in the 1930's.
The main residence has timber bearer and joist-framed floors with kauri pine floorboards and brick footings.
The main rooms have 14ft ceilings and there are seven marble fireplaces.
The external walls are made of face cavity brick with double hung timber windows that also have timber shutters.
The red cedar internal doors have four panels and are surrounded by 7 inch wide cedar architraves.
The cedar skirting boards are 12 inches high, and there's a cedar staircase. In other words, there's a lot of fine woodwork in this house.

Click here to take a virtual tour of Skellatar House
Click here to skip the virtual tour and go straight to the history