A visit to Taylor’s Cottage is a delight! This perfectly preserved building invites exploration and an understanding of what it must have been like to live here in the late 19th Century.
The Taylor family once lived in this weatherboard workman’s cottage, located at 3 Meadow Street Guildford. In 1983 the cottage was dismantled by volunteers, then moved to its present location in the Guildford Museum Precinct. Step inside and marvel at how it would have been like to live here. It is said that thirteen children grew up here, although not all at the same time! The bedroom only has space for a tiny ‘wardrobe’, and one small bed. Possibly the young children would have slept on the floor, or out on verandahs during warmer months.
The kitchen includes furniture constructed of packing cases, and an open fireplace which would have been in constant use for cooking, and heating water for bathing, and washing clothes. So much work to keep everyone clean, fed, and the house tidied after each meal.
See some of the tools Mrs Taylor and her daughters may have used to do the washing for a large family – a metal trough, scrubbing board, the reliable Sunshine soap, and wooden dolly pegs to hang the washing out on the clothes line.
The tour of Taylor’s Cottage ends at the authentic ‘dunny’ in the backyard. These toilets featured in many homes, right up to the 1960s in many Perth suburbs, and in rural areas. Ours, of course, is decommissioned and is simply a display model. It comes complete with a red back spider and a snake on the toilet seat!