The City of Launceston is embracing cutting-edge technology to help unlock the secrets of one of the city’s oldest remaining buildings — the historic Braemar Cottage at Heritage Forest.
00:00We are standing here in what was underneath this floor was the basement of the original house.
00:06It's a bluestone, very wide, 600mm wide foundation around the side.
00:12There's a trapdoor in the floor in the corner and that was covered with floor covering so they could get down into this basement area.
00:20There was a small trapdoor on the outside as well so they could come in and out.
00:23We think it was probably used for storage but the story goes that this property was attacked by bushrangers at least on a couple of occasions.
00:33So the story goes at least that that's where they would hide but they probably didn't have time to hide themselves in there but certainly I reckon that's where some of their valuables were hidden.
00:42There was a couple of little cavities inside the brick walls there which probably where they hid their valuables because the bushrangers would come and take what they wanted.
00:52They usually didn't hurt people unless they resisted but this property was at least raided by bushrangers at least on a couple of occasions that we have record for.
01:02So we think this was the original building site, probably not the current structure you see on it, probably a wattle and door building over the top of it.
01:12And then over time they've been able to improve the building and the building we see now is a mixture of years and ages
01:19and often as they had more children they'd add another room or two so it's been an evolution from the 1820s through to the current time period.
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