The final major piece of a Maitland historical site has been restored and will be unveiled to the public this weekend.
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The laundry at Grossmann and Brough House might not be as glamorous as the stately Victorian homes it serviced – but those behind the project say it will offer the important historic insights.
“It’s crucial,” Friends of Grossmann House’s Holly McNamee said.
“It’s social history, you look at all the mining cottages around Maitland, the women who lived there would work in a place like this. This was women’s work.
“There’s a whole workforce that was operating not in a satin dress.”
Ms McNamee said the laundry process 150 years ago was back-breakingly difficult.
“For the 21st century, the laundry is in the house – load the clothes, a few chemicals, switch the machine on and in less than an hour the clothes are ready,” she said.
“In genteel houses such as Brough and Grossmann Houses, household staff did the washing over a period of a few days.
“Pumping the water, soaking, boiling in the copper, mangling the water out of the clothes before getting the heavy items onto a line – all very heavy work and done by women.”
The old laundry fell into disrepair after the girls high school left the Church Street site in the 1960s.
Now, decades later, the laundry will be thrown open to schools looking to show their students how long-lost generations of the city once lived.
The open house, the first time the building will be opened to the public, will be held at Grossmann House on Sunday February 26 from 10am until 3pm.
Guided tours of Grossmann House and newly restored Laundry - $5.00 entrance. Refreshments available for sale. Home made products for sale. It’s also an opportunity to see the Year 12 Textile exhibition managed by AMCaT, at Brough House.