Dalgety Stone Shearers Quarters

The stone building at Dalgety, in the Snowy Monaro country of southern New South Wales, is a single-storey rectangular structure of dressed local stone, standing in open paddock. The walls are dry-stone in the lower courses, transitioning to mortared stonework at door and window heights. The roof is corrugated iron, replaced more recently than the walls. A timber verandah runs along the front, supported on rough-cut posts. The door is timber, latched with a wooden peg. The whole building is a working response to local materials and local weather. Nothing about it is decorative; everything is structural.

Dalgety was a planned colonial settlement on the Snowy River, briefly considered as a federal capital site before the choice fell on Canberra. Stone was used through the district because granite outcrops supplied the material close at hand, and because the Monaro winters demanded thicker walls than weatherboard could provide. The building in this photograph now stands empty.