• yesterday
Archaeologists explore an abandoned 1800s cottage in Perth, 15 minutes from Launceston. The site will soon become part of the new SkyeView Estate subdivision. Video by Phillip Biggs
Transcript
00:00The estate is called Sky View Estate, which is a linkage we've tried to include, whereby
00:08our family originally came from the Isle of Skye, just off the coast of Scotland.
00:13The cottage behind us is built in around 1870, well that's when the record indicates that
00:18it was built. We think it's earlier than that, some of the archaeology we've found indicates
00:22that it's potentially earlier than that.
00:24We've been finding a lot of buttons from the late 1800s and early 1900s. We've been
00:29finding coins. We've also got a few complete bottles and just lots and lots of artefacts.
00:36The house is interesting really in that it was the family home of Roy Powell.
00:43Roy and Evelyn Powell and their four children ended up living in this cottage for their
00:48whole life. He was a farm worker on Mountford.
00:50He was a rabbiter on Mountford for many, many years.
00:53We actually found a rabbit trap earlier, so that was really good to find some evidence
00:58of that original occupation.
01:00I remember coming here as a child and they were always welcoming and nice.
01:06We've got a couple of the really nice finds here, a complete bottle. We've got a tooth
01:10case container, it's Gibbs dentifrice, and we've also got a spoon with some hallmarks
01:15on it which will give us some dating.
01:18It's an interesting bit of history that one of his children, their ashes are scattered
01:23within the house here.
01:25We've also got a ring here that we found in the deposit which has got forget me not
01:30written on it. It's possibly something to do with bereavement or maybe something to
01:36do with somebody's romantic attachment, but it was probably quite a sad thing when
01:40this was lost.
01:41The late Mary Powell, her ashes were distributed here and we're hoping that through the nomenclature
01:47board one of the little streets can be named Mary Powell Close.
01:55For more information visit www.fema.gov

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