The Ornate Victorian Fireplace of the Nursery of Billilla Mansion - Halifax Street, Brighton, Melbourne

            Nestled in the heart of the original 1878 house is the Billilla nursery, which was the domain of Mr. and Mrs. Weatherly's children, Violet, Gladys and Lionel.

The comfortable room, around the same size as Mrs. Weatherly's bedroom and Mr. Weatherly's study, the room is cosy and bright.  

A wooden fireplace with a galleried mantle and an ornaments shelf features an insert of classically styled Victorian tiles around the grate and on the hearth.

The room still features its working servant's call bell near the door (rather than the usual fireplace to keep young children's hands away from the fire).

Brightly lit by two full length windows, the Billilla nursery has two Art Nouveau stained glass lunettes featuring a stylised panel.

However, it is the rare and remarkably intact wallpaper of the nursery that is the most eye catching thing about the room.  Designed by one of the best-known British decorative artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Walter Crane, the wallpaper was commissioned by wallpaper manufacturers Jeffrey and Company in London in 1876.  The pattern is very rare with the Wallcoverings department of the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York holding a fragment of the design, whilst a complete piece may be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which makes this room entirely papered in the design quite remarkable and unique.

The wallpaper portrays popular English nursery rhymes based upon Walter Crane's Toy Books of the 1870s. The characters of nursery rhymes include "Little Miss Muffet", "Queen Anne", "Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle", "Little Jack Horner", "Hush-A-Bye Baby", "Humpty Dumpty", "Who Killed Cock Robin" and "A Frog Did a Wooing Go".  They were selected and designed to correspond with the symmetrical form of the vine leaf scroll. 

Although machine produced, this wallpaper at two shillings and sixpence a roll, would have been very expensive to paper a whole room in.

Built in High Victorian style in 1878 for successful gold miner Robert Wright, Billilla mansion was originally a thirteen room mansion erected on seven and a half acres of land.  

When economic boom turned to bust in the 1880s, the property was purchased in 1888 by wealthy New South Wales pastoralist William Weatherly who named it Billilla after his land holdings and established a home there for his wife Jeannie and their children Violet, Gladys and Lionel.  

The house was substantially altered by architect Walter Richmond Butler in 1907, extending the house beyond its original thirteen rooms and adding the Art Nouveau façade seen today. 

After William Weatherly's death in 1914, his wife, who was much younger, remained living there until her own death in 1933.  She bequeathed the property to her daughter, Violet, who maintained the home with reduced staff until her own death in 1972.  

The property was purchased in 1973 by the Bayside  Council who subsequently used Billilla as a historical house with guided  tours, a wedding and events venue, a school and finally in 2009 as an artist's precinct in the property's outbuildings.  Billilla is a beautiful heritage property retaining many of its original features thanks to its long private ownership still incorporating a stately formal garden and the magnificent historic house. 

Billilla, at 26 Halifax Street, Brighton, is one of Melbourne’s few remaining significant homesteads, built on land which had originally been owned by Nicholas Were.  The house has a mixture of architectural styles, featuring a Victorian design with Art Nouveau features and has exquisite formal gardens, which retain much of their original Nineteenth Century layout.

Billilla retains many original Victorian elements and a number of outbuildings still stand to the rear of the property including the butler’s quarters, dairy, meat house, stable garden store and coach house.

Billilla was opened to the general public as part of the Melbourne Open House weekend 2022.

Billilla was used as a backdrop in the 1980 Australian Channel 10 miniseries adaptation of Sumner Locke Elliott's "Water Under the Bridge".  It was used at the Sydney harbourside home of Luigi, Honor and Carrie Mazzini.

Taken in: Australia / Victoria / North Brighton (show map)

Taken on: July 30, 2022

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Camera: Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS, f/2.8, 1/8 sec, 6.2mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS
Aperture:	f/2.8
Exposure Time:	0.125 sec (1/8)
Focal Length:	6.2mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
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