Ob 22oct14 hz

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Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - Page 57

Victoria Pictorial

Prahran, Windsor, Toorak Nostalgia Collection

● Prahran Council. 1901

● Newnham’s Butchery, Windsor. 1880.

● Linay’s Timber Yard

● W Henderson’s Workshop. 1871.

● Elizabeth Palmer’s Dairy. 189.

● J M Ashton, butcher. 1875.

● Toorak Village. Looking east. 1910.

● Kingham’s Shop, 21 Chapel St, Windsor

Page 58 - Melbourne Observer - Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Melbourne

Observer

www.MelbourneObserver.com.au

Travellers’Good Buys

with David Ellis

Eccentic croc wrestling naturalist ■ Show us a television viewer who reckons they’re not intrigued by the exploits of English naturalist Sir Richard Attenborough, and we’ll show you someone who, shall we say, tells fibs.

Attenborough turned bird and animal life in the wild into compulsory viewing, with programs that were at the one time riveting, educational, droll and witty.

So it is hardly surprising that he lists among his heroes an Englishman who explored the jungles of South America in the early- to mid-1800s, yet who looked at wildlife with the jaundiced, satirical eye of a modernday newspaper cartoonist.

That man was Charles Waterton – or Squire Waterton as he was known to neighbours around his family home, Walton Hall near Wakefield in Yorkshire. “He was a very important and extraordinary figure,” Attenborough once recalled. “And even if quite eccentric, was at the same time a farseeing conservationist.

“He was also double-jointed, so if you went to visit him you might well have been welcomed by him standing on one leg while using the foot of his other to scratch the back of his head.”

Stories about Waterton’s eccentricity abound… right back to his schooldays at a Jesuit establishment called Stonyhurst College in the Ribble Valley of Lancashire, where he was

● Head of the crocodile Charles Waterton captured by ‘grabbing its front legs and riding it into submission.’

Melbourne

Observer Wines & Liqueurs

with David Ellis

$10 chardonnay, value for money ■ Lindeman’s Bin 65 Chardonnay has long been one of the best valuefor-money Chardonnays in this country (and in international markets too,) one that at a current $10 never fails to satisfy for flavour, toss-it-down enjoyment, and price.

And interestingly while launched onto the market here 23 years ago, it had in fact been in production for six years before that – to supply the Northern Hemisphere that had taken with gusto to the drink’s fruit-driven and easy-drinking style, and when eventually released in Australia in 1991 was an overnight equal success here too.

The current-release 2014 made from fruit sourced across a wide area of South Eastern Australia maintains the tradition, with lovely fruit salad, fig, peach and toasty oak aromas that follow through delightfully on the palate. Enjoy it on its own pre-dining as the conversation gets going, in the party-room, and indoors or out where it makes for a terrific match at the table with all manner of seafoods.

And you’ll notice that it’s new label’s got some changes to it, with a sketch of Dr Henry John Lindeman’s 1885 Cawarra homestead set within a triumphal wreath featuring Australian native eucalyptus and gum nuts, and under these the Latin phrase ‘Felicitas in Vitae,’ meaning ‘In Life Happiness’ – from Dr Lindeman’s own favourite quote “the one purpose of wine is to bring happiness.”

One to note ■ The Hunter Valley’s Briar Ridge has just released its 2014 Single Vineyard Dairy Hill Semillon that garnered a Trophy for Best 2014 Semillon at this year’s Hunter Valley Wine Show.

A great coup for Chief Winemaker Gwyneth Olsen who joined the company only last year, this is a drop that came from lowyielding vines with wonderful concentrations of flavour, that in turn reward in the glass with elegantly crisp citrus and refreshing acidity, and with accompanying lemon and lime aromas.

At $35 a great partner with oysters with Asian sauces, seafood salads, or crab.

Pictured ■ Get the conversation going around a seafood lunch or dinner with this great drop.

■ Enjoy this trophy winner with oysters with Asian sauces, seafood salads or crab.

given the task of resident rat-catcher and fox-hunter due to his deadly accuracy with a cross-bow.

In fact he culled so many foxes, that most of his fellow pupils enjoyed free fur hats to keep their heads warm during the Ribble Valley’s cold, wet winter months.

And showing his love of adventure, on a school trip to the Vatican, Waterton climbed a tall tower near St Peters and left his cap there to prove he had achieved the feat. According to folklore, when the Pope expressed his displeasure, Waterton scaled the dizzyingly high tower once more to retrieve it.

And as an adult, if dinner parties at Walton Hall began to dull, he would slip under the table, start barking like a dog and bite guests’ ankles.

In 1804, at the age of 22, Charles Waterton travelled to British Guiana (now Guyana) to take charge of his uncle’s estates near Georgetown, a task that fired up his interest in wildlife.

For years he explored the rainforests, collecting birds and small animals and shipping them home to the world’s first wildlife sanctuary that he’d established at Walton Hall.

He also taught himself a unique style of taxidermy, shaping the skins of specimens around an empty shell rather than stuffing them.

They included a large-ish crocodile he’d captured in Guyana by grabbing its front legs and riding it into exhausted submission.

He also created bizarre ‘hoax’ animals that he fashioned using pieces from different beasts. These included a piece he satirically titled ‘John Bull and the National Debt.’

It was formed from a porcupine in a tortoise shell being attacked by six devil-like creatures – while his mostfamous piece, ‘Nondescript’ was made from the backside of a monkey fashioned to resemble the face of Britain’s dreary Secretary to the Treasury, Stephen Lushington who constantly slapped exorbitant import duties on Waterton’s specimens.

Waterton’s brother Edward migrated to Australia and bought land near Port Macquarie in NSW but never actually lived there, and after also spending a couple of years in New Zealand returned to Sydney and finally sailed back to England – taking with him as presents for his brother’s wildlife sanctuary two live emus, a kangaroo and a squirrel.

Edward Waterton died during the voyage, and Charles was so distraught he gave the Australian animals away, saying “Without my brother, those animals would have increased my sorrow.”

Charles Waterton was still climbing and pruning tall trees on his estate at 80 years of age, and after such an active life died in a simple accident in 1865 just short of his 83rd birthday: he tripped over a tree root and suffered internal injuries.

Many of his odd-ball creatures can be seen in a museum opened in Wakefield last year, including the crocodile he had ridden in Guyana and the famous ‘Nondescript.’ Others are at his old school Stonyhurst.

His manor house that’s on an island within a picturesque 11ha lake is now a luxury hotel, and guests can walk the splendid grounds of Squire Waterton’s once-wildlife sanctuary.

Details www.watertonparkhotel.co.uk