This lovely old house has been built in several stages starting with the central part in the 1880s. The colour of the bricks is always a clue to the construction date. The beautiful garden laid out in front is still magnificent. It has had several owners including a mail contractor who built the stables below in the back paddock.
Cette belle vieille maison a été construite en plusieurs étapes, en commençant par la partie centrale aux années 1880. La couleur des briques est toujours une indication de la date de construction. Le joli jardin devant la maison est encore magnifique. Plusieurs propriétaires se sont succédés y compris un transporteur de courrier qui a fait construire les étables dans un champ derrière la maison.
9 replies on “Postcard from Australia – Armidale: Bona Vista”
The blue of the sky is awesome. I hope there isn’t searing temperatures accompanying it.
I love the house but the brown shed is most unusual.
We had wonderful skies the whole time we were in Armidale and the temperatures were very pleasant.
I found the shed very unusual too.
The stable’s quite unusual. The house really looks appealing!
Most unusual, isn’t it?
Hi Rosemary 🙂 If you are on the coast, would love to see you both! 🙂 Jill xx
Hi Jill, we’re not going further north than Coffs Harbour or I would have let you know!
The various owners have made no effort to match their additions have they ? Town/Country planners would never have given the thumbs up for those new extentions. Is this a ‘good thing ‘ Discuss’
I think it is a great pity that the additions were made with no respect for the original house, especially the part on the left.
🙂 There is always a fine line between respecting the existing building and pastiche. With the building above the main mistake was for the additions to not reflect the lines of the original — all the roof pitches are different! Not only does this detract from the visual appeal of the house, but has practical implications as well — where the different roofs meet will be trickier to construct and maintenance and repairs are potentially more difficult and more necessary. The veranda, whilst practical and tizzied up with all that iron lace to establish its ‘heritage’ creditials, appears to be plonked on the front in an entirely random and unsympathetic way. Is the veranda part of the original? If so, one really has to doubt the taste of the owners and the skill of their architects right from the beginning. Having said all that though, I’ll bet it’s a lovely house to live in (unless the roof leaks round the joins with the extensions). It just fails on the aesthetic front.