HISTORIC HAMILTON
The historic hamlet of Hamilton offers a glimpse of a colonial past in a charming pastoral setting 75 minutes from Hobart B efore I even pull my suitcase from the car I’ve taken more than a dozen pictures of the quaint sandstone shopfront of Jackson’s Emporium in Hamilton, with its wood-framed chalkboards proclaiming the store’s wares: real fruit and berry icecreams, hot dogs from locally made sausages, and “interesting and different” local products.
Chiselled in stone above the door a sign reads, “James Jackson’s Emporium AD 1856”, and below it is a decorative fanlight with “Accommodation enquires” etched in glass.
As I push open the colonial-style screen door, I feel as though I’ve stepped into an Aladdin’s cave of marvels.
In one corner is a complex wall panelling reminiscent of a European ballroom. Rosemarbled columns topped with gold friezes frame Baroque-style portraits. Below it are neat rows of homemade jams, sauces and preserves for sale.
On the opposite wall is a large wooden kitchen dresser, its shelves lined with more jams, all made on site. Beside it on a window ledge is a jumble of cane baskets and through the window I glimpse pear and apricot trees laden with fruit and bearing signs welcoming customers to pick their own lunch.
The servery is stocked with an array of packaged smallgoods and homemade glutenfree cakes. There’s free-range wood-fired leg ham, an assortment of kransky, kangaroo patties and scotch eggs – all locally produced by small-scale operators in the Derwent Valley. On the counter is a jar of pickled eggs and in the front window is a tableau of what the shop would have been like in earlier times. The impression is of an old-world emporium.
I’ve come to stay in McCauley’s Cottage, one of two historic homes operated by the store. Proprietor Roger Zantuck greets me warmly and leads me along the road to my sixroom home for the night. We enter through the back door into a kitchen with casement windows opening on to a low, stone window seat with views to the garden.
The stone is from a small lean-to cool room Roger demolished during renovations to the house in the early 1980s. Now in his 60s, he bought the cottage as a young man drawn to a semi-self-sufficient regional lifestyle.
In the sitting room there’s a photo album filled with fading pictures of Roger as a thirtysomething in his patched flares and bandana doing extensive restoration work on the cottage and planting the now-mature fruit trees. In the front rooms are the master bedroom with its antique double bed and a period lounge room with a working fireplace and formal dining table.
The cottage is one of three sandstone houses built on the property for the church’s clergy. This one was built in 1846 for the rector’s assistant and from the window in the living room I can see the rector’s house with its wide bullnose veranda a way off and the thirdhouse across the lawn.
Upstairs is a cosy attic with slanted ceilings and dormer windows divided into private sleeping areas. There is a queen-size bed, three single beds and a children’s play area.
The back garden leads to a netted orchard. Inside is an enormous mulberry tree, as well as apricots, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, figs, at least five varieties of plums and a large, healthy veggie patch.
Roger picks a few zucchinis, which are later transformed into a moist chocolate zucchini cake by his wife, Kim.
“We often hear about food miles, but for us it’s actually food metres,” he says. “Most of the food we cook over there has been grown here. And we do a three-step commute to work. Through that door is home. Being so close to work allows us to stay open later.”
The next morning, after a very comfortable sleep and another forage through the orchard, I head back over to the emporium. As I’m entering, a man and his two teenage children follow me in.
“That apricot ice-cream was delicious,” the man feels compelled to tell me. “We’re getting another one.”
His comments cement my breakfast choice and later when I’m scooping the delicate flavours from my cup, I can’t help but agree. The author was a guest of Jackson’s Emporium and McCauley’s Cottage