Rouse Hill Estate: a preservationist approach

Six generations of one family occupied Rouse Hill House from its construction in the early 19th century until the late 1990s when it opened as a museum. Each generation added another layer of belongings, improvements and memories, and today every object and addition, every tear, stain and repair, has a story to tell.

When the property was transferred to the Historic Houses Trust of NSW (HHT; now MHNSW) by the NSW Government in 1987, the HHT rejected the then prevalent conservation approach of ‘corrective conservation’. This approach meant that for many heritage places, particularly houses and their contents, a specific point in time or a particular era of family occupation was chosen to be elevated above all others. Any later additions or alterations were seen as obscuring the heritage value of the place and so were stripped back, removed or ‘corrected’. Then HHT curator James Broadbent rejected this approach for Rouse Hill, stating in the property’s conservation management plan:

Instead, Broadbent and the HHT boldly adopted a preservationist approach. The property was deemed to be an ‘unedited, cumulative archive of Australian life’, and all aspects of its life and fabric up until the moment it passed out of private ownership in 1978 were seen to be of equal historical and heritage significance. This means that every effort has been made to keep the property in the same condition in which it was found in 1978, more than 150 years after it was first established.

The preservationist approach was based on the writings of English art critic John Ruskin, a key figure in the 19th-century anti-restoration movement, who argued in his publication The seven lamps of architecture (1849) that to restore a historic building or a work of art, even using the methods of the historic period, and even ‘faithfully’, meant much reproduction of its old forms in new material, and therefore destruction of the unique, authentic work as moulded by the original artist, and as weathered through time and history.

Today, the preservationist philosophy is still followed at Rouse Hill Estate. When conservation work is required, MHNSW adopts a considered and cautious approach, seeking to make only changes that are essential for the continued existence of the fabric and place. Key questions we ask when scoping work are ‘Is it necessary?’ and ‘If we do nothing, will it lead to further loss?’ If the answer to both questions is yes, then intervention is appropriate.

This approach also requires that new repair work is easily ‘read’ as such – that is, repairs are not hidden, made invisible, aged or patinaed. This ensures that visitors are able to see the minimal but necessary interventions required amid the long history of use and wear and tear that itself forms part of the place’s significance. Broadbent likened this approach to that of an archivist conserving a document: ‘repairs should not be aiming to make the document like new but retain the state of the document so that its use can still be perceived’.

Careful planning and preparation

In all large-scale heritage conservation projects such as those detailed below, careful planning is the essential first step before any works commence on site. Extensive condition inspections are undertaken to identify urgent and essential repairs needed to ensure the condition of the built fabric does not deteriorate further. These also ensure the ongoing protection of the significant and extensive collections housed within the structures. Considerable time is spent crafting appropriate solutions to the identified issues.