For this week's prompt I have chosen not one of my favourite photos, but technically more like one of my Family History Interesting Photos!
Let me elaborate on how I came to take this photo out of the passenger window of our car on the 7 September 2016, along the Coonabarabran Road, Gunnedah. There is no-one in it, but I have an interesting story and theory as to the stone wall you may see.
My husband and I were doing one of our bi-annual holiday trips north to see my sisters in Queensland. It is usually at least a two day trip so we planned on doing a little Family History Research as a side trip on the way to break up the journey. My early paternal Great Grandparents were in a town called Gunnedah between the years 1877 -1915. My G/Grandfather Alfred Brandt was there until his death in 1883 and my G/Grandmother Louisa until her death in 1915.
The Back Story
My Grandfather was the Publican of the Sugarloaf Inn, on the Coonabarabran Road, near Gunnedah until he died when he fell down a well in 1883. His wife took over the Publican’s license after his death and continued to run the Sugarloaf Inn up until late 1891 and after that another pub the Bank Hotel until the early 1900s. Then deciding that she needed to slow down she established a Lodging House in the Imperial Hotel in Gunnedah, until her death in 1915. Her life had been hard, she buried two husbands and one son at the age of fourteen.
My Theory
So what does the accompanying photo have to do with all of the above? We had decided that we would like to find the Sugarloaf Inn and Alfred and Louisa’s grave sites.
- We knew there was a range of mountains with the name Sugarloaf.
- We knew where they were buried.
- We had an appointment with one of the volunteers of the local Historical Society.
How hard could it be? Well harder than we thought!
The Historical Society had records that confirmed my research of where Alfred and Louisa were buried. Although they didn’t have any information about the Sugarloaf Inn.
We were informed that the cemetery was no longer in use, so we set out to see what we could find. Unfortunately there were many graves with headstones that were no longer legible and we eventually gave up and decided to try and track down where the Sugarloaf Inn may have been.
We knew the road and thanks to Google Maps we were able to find the area known as Sugarloaf. The road was no longer the small country track that it would have been a hundred years ago. It was now a major road on the outskirts of the town with mainly farmland property on both sides.
From memory we were also able to pinpoint where we thought the Inn would have been and it was here that we found a farm house. So taking a hunch that the owners would be receptive to a couple of strangers asking questions, we drove down the long driveway. Of course there was no one at home, so another dead end!
But on leaving the property we decided to drive back and forth on the road for a few kilometres a couple of times. On one of these trips I noticed in the paddock what looked like some stonework. We managed to get off the road close to the fence and it looked like a stone wall that had seen better days.
So I took a photo of it and until somewhere down the track in my research or another trip to Gunnedah, I hold onto the belief that it was indeed the remains of the Sugarloaf Inn. It was close to the road which was a necessity for a thriving Inn.
For now it is enough to have this theory and maybe one day I might actually be able to prove it!
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