Wallalong

The first house was built on the estate around 1840, though the current house which replaced the original was constructed in the early 1860s.

In 1843, the nephew of Dr Walter Scott, also named Walter, had arrived from Scotland to manage his uncle's estate and then eventually stayed on as owner of Wallalong when his uncle returned to England and subsequently died in 1854.

The homestead is a brick building with stone quoins, internal cedar joinery and breezy hallways and rooms that open onto the verandah. Some of furniture dates from around the time the house was built in the 1860s while many of the furnishings including dining room wallpaper, blinds and cornices were installed in the 1890s. The stables are also a feature, with stalls divided by iron railings and posts surmounted with cast-iron horses’ heads manufactured by Musgrave’s of Belfast.

The estate was photographed when Scott family descendants still resided in the house. The house was put up for auction in September 1995 and its contents were sold at auction in October 1995. A curtain, Edwardian-period carpet square and a length of the dining room wallpaper are now all part of the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection.

Photographer: Louise Lister

Date Photographed: October 1991

Original image format: transparency film: 6x6cms

Copyright: Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Photograph © Louise Lister

Further reading: Cecily Joan Mitchell, Hunter's River: a history of early families and the homes they built in the Lower Hunter Valley between 1830 and 1860, 2nd ed., Lostock NSW, 1984