Cooma Cottage is a heritage-listed former farm and tuberculosis sanatorium and now house museum and historic site in the Southern Tablelands region of New South Wales in Australia. It is located on Yass Valley Way at Marchmont and was built from 1830 to 1837 by Cornelius and Rebecca O'Brien. It is also known as Hamilton Hume's House, Humedale Stud, and New Nordrach Institute for Consumption. The property is owned by the National Trust of Australia (NSW). It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 1 March 2002.
It is one of the oldest surviving rural houses in Yass, New South Wales. It has historic significance as a relatively intact complex of rural buildings. It has a variety of significant natural and built elements, including an example of an early tree called the Picconia, a relative of the olive and rare in Australia, which is almost extinct in its native Canary Islands.
Cooma Cottage stands as evidence of what the first settlers built for themselves, their families and servants. The handmade bricks and crafted woodwork are the result of local skills and manufacturing. The cottage grew from a bungalow through a series of additions over the 19th century. The cottage has important heritage values as the home of Hamilton Hume for more than 30 years from 1839, after he ended his travels and became a grazier. It is a valuable part of the early development of the merino wool industry in Australia.
History Overland explorer Hamilton Hume (1797–1873) was the first European to reach the Yass district around the Yass River in 1821. He returned to the area in 1824 while on an expedition to Geelong (Port Phillip) with Captain William Hovell. Hume was subsequently granted a parcel of land in the area which he took up in 1829.ACNT, 1988, 50
The 100 acres on which Cooma Cottage is situated was originally part of 960 acres granted to pastoralist Henry O'Brien in 1829. In 1833 100 acres in the south-east corner of Henry O'Brien's grant was transferred to W. H. Broughton for Mrs Rebecca O'Brien (Broughton's daughter), wife of Cornelius O'Brien, Henry's brother.
The original cottage was quite refined: an archetypal colonial bungalow of diminutive scale, it formed the opposite front to the entrance and faced north over the Yass River. It was the garden front of this extraordinary country house. The timber cottage had been built by the Anglo-Irish O'Brien brothers, pastoralists of note, and was the home of Cornelius, while Henry lived to its west at the still-surviving Duoro.Lucas, 2004, 17-18
In 1837 Thomas Walker described it as a "very nice and commodious cottage, very well furnished and with everything comfortable about it; the grounds and gardens nicely laid out, but as yet quite in their infancy".Lucas, 2004, 18
Hamilton Hume purchased the 100 acres from Henry, Rebecca and Cornelius O'Brien in June 1839. Hume, it is said, was in love with the spot and had, in fact, camped there in 1824 on his epic overland journey to Port Phillip with Hovell.
Hume was to live at Cooma Cottage for the rest of his life and it was he who added some 20 rooms to the house in fits and starts over, at least, the next 20 years. While the whole eventually came together as a Palladian composition centred on the portico it was, in fact, a conglomerate mess of uncomfortable rooms, meanly lit and with a plan which depended almost entirely on going outside in the cruel winters of the Yass plains. Except for the handsome stables block, thought to be designed by the Goulburn architect James Sinclair, nothing Hume built could be described as fine. With the exception of the kitchen block, it is hard to know what these rooms were used for; storage and perhaps strangers' rooms for putting up guests and of course rooms for employees. Hume and his wife were childless and presumably made use of the original O'Brien rooms with their pretty north-facing verandah and elegant French casements, almost like bookcase doors, opening onto it.
The name "Cooma" is intriguing and is said to derive from the diminutive of County Murray (Co. Mur) in which region it lies. The main street of Yass is called Comur Street, pronounced like the property.Lucas, 2004, 19 The Humes seem to have simply used the name "Cooma" and there are numerous letters simply headed "Cooma, Yass".Lucas, 2004, 18-19
A list of plants obtained by Hume from Camden Park nursery in 1850 include a number of mulberry trees, white figs and two Moorepark apricots, with 12 common laurel trees and a selection of flowering plants, while a Macarthur List identifies early roses. Hume had extensive vineyards at Cooma Cottage in the 1860s.
Hume enlarged his holding in 1862 by purchasing 34 acres, 7 perches from W. W. Billyard.
Hume and his wife, Elizabeth continued to live at Cooma Cottage until his death in 1873, Elizabeth stayed on in the house until c.1875 where after she moved into Yass, dying at "Cliftonwood" in 1886. Hamilton Hume had left Cooma Cottage property to his wife Elizabeth and his nephew John Kennedy Hume.ACNT, 1988 Elizabeth's was a life interest and Cooma Cottage was left to Hamilton's favourite nephew John Kennedy Hume, son of his youngest brother Francis Rawdon Hume (1803–88) of Appin.
John Kennedy Hume (1840–1905), lived at Cooma Cottage with his wife Emma (née Clayton) and family. Their son Hamilton Hume Jr was born there in 1875 and died in 1877. His only heir was his daughter, Ellen (Miss E.C.Hume) .
At that time the small brick cottage was occupied by a Mrs Geale. It is uncertain how long J. K. Hume lived at Cooma Cottage as he was recorded as living at Camden and at Beulah, Appin by 1888. Much of the original furnishings went with them. Some of this ended up being gifted to the Yass Historical Society and this is now on loan to the National Trust (NSW). It includes a fine cedar dining table, a cedar secretaire and two exceptional demi-lune side tables veneered in she-oak (Casuarina sp.).
There are references to two families living at Cooma Cottage in late nineteenth and early twentieth century, namely the Clayton family (relatives of J.K.Hume's wife, Emma) and the Unwin family. John Unwin was born in 1900 and the family lived there until the death of the father in 1902. The Unwins used the house as a sanatorium for consumptives in the late 1890s. In the "Town and Country Journal" of 1/7/1899 it was written up as the "New Nordrach Institute for Consumption". The climate at Cooma Cottage can be quite bracing.
A photograph shows post and rail fencing to the north side of the house.
In 1910 the property was set aside for closer settlement and became part of the Hardwicke settlement purchase area. It was advertised as Farm 28 in the Government Gazette on 2 November. It was purchased by William Bawden. In the following year Farm 27 was added to the above settlement purchase.
In 1924 Bawden died and in 1925 Portions 31 & 32 comprising Farms 27 and 28 were transferred to John (Jack) Leo Bourke of Yass. Bourke used the property, evidently in association with his father as a horse stud. At that time it was called "Humedale Stud" - this also stated it was owned by P.M. and J.L.Bourke.
Small areas of the property were resumed for upgrading the Hume Highway (1938 and 1962) and for a transmission line (1944).
Mary Kennedy (née Hume) remembered that in the 1950s the property included a large orchard and vineyard.
By 1970 the National Trust of Australia (NSW) was concerned about the condition of the house and had expressed interest in purchasing it. Approaches to acquire it failed, the owner J. L. (Jack) Bourke refusing to sell it to the Trust. Mary Griffiths, a Canberra resident, had fallen for it and persuaded Bourke to sell it to her. It was in a terrible state. Mrs Griffiths agreed to transfer the property to Trust ownership in return for the Trust spending $35,000 on it. She was to retain a life tenancy and intended to use it as a country retreat.Lucas, 2004, 17
Bourke sold the property (100 acres) to the National Trust of Australia (NSW) in 1970 who leased it to Mary Griffiths. Portion 31 (the western portion of the property) was subsequently transferred to Griffiths in 1979.
In March 1970 architect John Fisher LFRAIA (of then Fisher, Jackson & Hudson) was appointed to spend the money and in effect save the house. Mr Fisher worked with Clive Lucas, architect, as his associate. Every room leaked and Jack Bourke had retreated to one room in the south-west wing where a smoky fire, elderly hens, dogs, cobwebs and dirt prevailed. Ceilings were collapsing, verandahs sagging, brick walls crumbling, damp and decay were everywhere. And the house was not a cottage at all but was over 30 rooms, with cellar, plus coach house and stables.
The National Trust of Australia (NSW) began conservation works in 1971 by replacing the roof and repairing the "Shepherds Cottage" for use by Jack Bourke who was moved out of the house.NT Cooma Cottage CMP, 1987/88, 5 The first moneys had to "put the umbrella up" and make the house dry again as well as make the shepherd's cottage, to the south, habitable for Jack Bourke who was to have a life tenancy. The original O'Brien house had been shingled, as had some of the Hume additions, but by about 1860 the whole was sheeted in the patent iron tiles made in England by Morewood & Rogers. The tile roof was still there in 1970 but in terrible order. Iron tiles were remade, verandahs jacked up, columns added to by about a foot (300mm), the roof strutted and the large and complicated roof re-sheeted. This, plus upgrading the shepherd's cottage, was all that could be done with the initial funds. Works were complete by late 1971.
The Australian Heritage Commission National Estate grants of the post-1973 period allowed further work to proceed. In 1975 the brickwork was repaired, the front of the original timber cottage was underpinned and levelled so that at least the French doors into the verandah could open. The external joinery was repaired, sashes reconstructed and the ashlar plastering repaired.
In the summer of 1978–79 the house was painted outside for probably the first time in 100 years. In June 1873 we know that the weatherboard section was painted by John Colls of Yass. At the same time, the drawing room got a new chimney piece and three rooms were wallpapered.
By the end of 1979 the interior of the O'Brien house had been repaired, the fine cedar joinery made good and the garden restored to a plan by James Broadbent.
In 1979 Mrs Griffiths gave up her interest in the house in return for a piece of land on the western corner of the property.
The final thrust of the works took place in 1986–8, in time for the Australian Bicentennial.Lucas, 2004, 18-20 This was one of 13 historic properties included in 'A Gift to the Nation, sponsored solely by AMATIL Ltd.
Shutters were reconstructed, the rest of the interiors conserved and wallpapers reproduced for several of the rooms. The important picket fence across the forecourt was also rebuilt. The house was officially opened on 19 April 1988.
The National Trust's policy for the grounds has been to conserve the cottage's setting within its extensive 100 acres, and to protect the existing visual links with other rural properties established along the Yass River.
Archaeological excavations have identified changed soil conditions at the front of the property which indicated the likelihood of an early carriage loop in front of the house, and patches of organically rich topsoil, which suggest the sites of garden beds.Le Seuer, 2004
In 2008–09, the shepherd's cottage was upgraded with funding from the NSW Department of Planning and donations from the National Trust Women's Committee. The cottage is now tenanted. The cottage is now tenanted.NSW National Trust Magazine, November 2008 – January 2009; Silink & Hayes, 2014