Updated
A World-Heritage-listed convict site in northern Tasmania has been given a dose of the 21st century in an effort to secure the future of the 200-year-old property.
Woolmers Estate at Longford now boasts a $5.3 million visitor centre with galleries, a restaurant and function space as part of a move to attract more tourists to help fund the maintenance of the site.
The collection of original buildings on the site includes family accommodation, workers' cottages, a former chapel, blacksmith's shop, stables, bakehouse, pump house and gardener's cottage.
The estate was founded in 1817 by Thomas Archer, who had emigrated to Australia five years earlier, hopeful his family connections would secure him a lofty position within Governor Lachlan Macquarie's administration in Sydney, the Australian Dictionary of Biography recorded.
It was not to be - and after a run of lesser roles, Archer was appointed to a senior role at Port Dalrymple, now Georgetown, in Tasmania's north east in 1813.
Archer went on to hold several other positions before resigning in 1821 to devote his attention to his property near Longford, where he was soon joined by several brothers and his father.
The Archer family would go on to farm and develop their estate until the death of the last heir, Thomas William Archer in 1994.
Government records list Woolmers Estate as a "pre-eminent example of a property established on an 1817 land grant which exemplifies the use of convict labour in the assignment system to establish a large pastoral estate".
"Woolmers is outstanding for the longevity of ownership in one family and the retention of buildings, artefacts, and records which provide an important insight into the evolution of the estate as a pastoral property over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries."
Present-day descendants, like Bruce Archer, are convinced their forebears would like the modern additions.
"They were very progressive so I would have thought they would have supported it very much," he said.
"The original Thomas Archer was a leader in agriculture and also a leader in the way he treated the convicts that worked here so he was a very progressive person."
It's 200 years since the Archers established Woolmers Estate - but Australia's best example of a convict-era farm isn't cheap to maintain.
"It's a magnificent building and hopefully we'll get more visitors to Woolmers which we need to maintain what is one of Australia's best original homesteads," Bruce Archer said.
Chairman of the Woolmers Foundation Peter Rae said the future depended on increasing tourists to the site.
"Any heritage place is expensive and we need to have income beyond what we can get from visitors who pay to go through the house or around the grounds.
"This centre should be able to provide the variety of things which attract people for repeat visits."
Private donor Nigel Peck, a relative of the Archer family, contributed two-thirds of the funding for the new works. He died last year.
His son Matthew Peck said the visitor centre, named after his father, was a great addition.
"He'd be very impressed," he said.
"This was quite close to his heart, I think this is the last thing he contributed any money to in a philanthropic pursuit."
The Tasmanian Government funded the rest of the project.
The work of convict artists is highlighted in the new gallery, while other artworks can be seen outside the homestead for the first time.
"What we want to do is tell the story of the combination between convict and free settlers," Mr Rae said.
"How they developed Tasmania, how they brought civilisation to Tasmania in a sense of artwork and artistic contribution."
Topics: history, community-and-society, art-history, longford-7301
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