Side Bedroom

The side bedroom at Woolla is a small room off the main corridor, with a single iron-framed bed against one wall, a hardwood dressing table along the opposite wall, and a window facing onto the bush outside. The bed carries a thin mattress and a folded woollen blanket. The dressing table holds a small mirror with a chest of drawers beneath. The walls are split-slab hardwood, the slabs running horizontal, fitted tight against each other. The ceiling above is corrugated iron with rough-hewn beams crossing below. The window is small, the panes intact, the timber sash unpainted and weathered. A suitcase sits against the wall beneath the dressing table.

Woolla sits on the Deua River near Braidwood, in southern NSW. Helena (Nellie) Davis took up the freehold in 1910, and the original huts were completed in 1927, when she moved in with her son Everid and daughter Neta. The Davis family lived here in continuous occupation until 1990. The side bedroom carries the standard Woolla fit-out: handmade timber, basic furnishings, and a suitcase instead of a wardrobe. The family stored their clothes this way for the full 63 years they were here. Vern and Neta were among the last Australians to live a colonial-style rural life through to its actual end. The property is in safe hands under the current owner and came through the 2019 to 2020 Black Summer bushfires intact. Brett photographed the side bedroom at Woolla on 29 December 2021.