'Carrickters' of Carrick
DECEMBER 2017 | Lorraine Clarke
ALTHOUGH TASMANIA loses many of its youngsters to the big wide world, it draws many of those who have grown older and wiser. One by one, the Puccetti family found good reasons to relocate from South Australia to our lovely island, until Andrew, with wife Susanne, became the last of eight siblings to make a new home here. They bought and re-fitted the old convict-built bluestone mill at Carrick, and painstakingly packed 3 containers with 100 cubic metres of treasures and precious trinkets to stock it in its new incarnation as an antiques store.
Andrew is an amateur historian by inclination. “Sue and I are old-fashioned people. We like things from earlier eras,” he said. “We’re 100% behind Tasmanian heritage and want to maintain as much of it as possible. We’re members of the National Trust. We want to leave this place better than we found it.”
The monolithic 3 foot thick stone walls of the 4-storey building exudes permanence and is cool on the hottest day. The Puccettis have sympathetically restored the mill’s gutted interior to life while retaining elements of its original working history. A huge functional replica wooden water wheel at one end of the store actually spins when there is a lot of rain. “There used to be a dam upstream with a millrace that fed into the wheel, but that was washed away in the great flood of 1929. We’d love to be able to replace the dam and use the wheel to generate electricity for the town. The wheel was spinning madly last winter.”
Andrew loves to share the history of their extraordinary home. A wooden mill beside a crude timber bridge over the Liffey River was the first building in Carrick in 1820. When this was washed away, the four-storey stone mill was erected in 1846 by Mr William Bryan, and later sold to Mr T. W. Monds, whose name still graces the front wall. “The mill used to be the biggest employer in Carrick. In harvest season, horses carting drayloads of grain would be backed up into the village. The mill could hold 17,000 bushels of grain.”
The original millstones are still on site, massive wheels of hand-tooled stone accurately pieced together and bound with iron. In operation, these weighty stones were separated by the tiniest margin but never quite met as they ground wheat into fine flour to feed Tasmania’s growing population, and bran to fuel the hard-working horses that provided transport and motive power before the combustion engine era changed our world.
Behind the mill is the old miller’s cottage, built in 1846 of convict-made red bricks. Andrew and Sue intend to restore this authentically for B&B accommodation. They revel in their acres of grass, trees and established gardens surrounding the mill, sloping down to the river. “Our antiques store opened on 1st October, and business so far has exceeded our expectations. We used to be city slickers, but now we’re proud to be known as the Carrickters of Carrick.”
Visit Carrick Mill Antiques and browse through the collections of old jewellery, china, coins, books and magazines, toys, glassware, furniture and multifarious knick-knacks displayed in a evocative and historic setting.
Contact Andrew or Sue on 0415 734 154.
Photo | Mike Moores
