Woodlands – the birthplace of ‘Seven Little Australians’

‘Woodlands’ – the home of celebrated author, Ethel Turner and the birthplace of ‘Seven Little Australians’ recently opened its doors to the public as part of the Ku-ring-gai Heritage Festival.

A forecast of rain did not hinder us from opening the doors to ‘Woodlands’ and celebrating ‘all things Ethel’ in conjunction with the Ku-ring Heritage Festival on the weekend of the 29th/30th April.

Wandering through the rooms reminiscent of the most significant eras in ‘Woodlands’ history was a journey back in time to life in the 1890s and early 1900s. Guided tours provided the back stories to the cultural and social history of Lindfield – a newly named suburb which had only just begun to write its history ‘far out in the bush’!

We were entertained by Mark Schuster, an expert musician on the squeezebox, and the string ensemble from Lindfield Public School. Macarena Smartt taught us how to paint, the Knitters Guild NSW Inc Ku-ring-gai Group shared their talent for knitting and crochet.

ADFAS (Australian Decorative Fine Arts Society) shared with us the finer things in life and the Doll Collectors Club of NSW had a fascinating collection of dolls on display and shared their stories with us.

Sunday, ‘family fun day’ was all about children with children’s authors’ who shared their stories and books books with us and Abbey Lane supervised games from Ethel’s era.

Throughout the weekend we had speakers who engaged us with the history of ‘Woodlands’ and Ethel Turner – a special mention to Sarah Morley from the State Library of NSW and the award winning Susanne Gervay for her captivating speech, Peter Poole for his insights into Ethel in her role as his great-grandmother, and Abbey Lane who regaled us with Ethel and Herbert’s love story that unfolded whilst Ethel lived in Lindfield.

Thank you to all who participated – our speakers, our exhibitors, our volunteers and most of all to the Lim family for sharing their beautiful home with us over the weekend.