Tuesday, May 11, 2010

MUGGA MUGGA COTTAGE

I have been trying to research the Mugga-Mugga historic cottage and the info is limited although Sylvia Curley is interesting and her desire to preserve an important piece of the ACT's heritage is commendable. She was a woman who witnessed the growth of a city from it's pastoral history into the uniquely beautiful place I believe it is today.

Settlement on the site commenced in about 1838. On the property is the simple cottage of the head shepherd at Duntroon in the 1870s. The property was owned by the Curley family. Sylvia Curley (1898 - 1999) (bio here) was born at Duntroon Estate and qualified as a nurse in 1926. She worked for the Canberra Community Hospital  from 1938 until her retirement in 1966 as deputy matron. (I am a a '63 model)

Sylvia Curley offered Mugga-Mugga to the ACT govenrnment in 1994 as an environmental education centre. Present-day Mugga Mugga is only seventeen hectares in size. The cottage remains a testament to the families who worked on one of the Limestone Plain’s great pastoral estate Duntroon.


The ACT Government has a page (here)

Mugga Mugga Cottage is located at 8 Narrabundah Lane, Symonston.

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