The attraction has seen falling guests and critiques of its historical past
A preferred vacationer attraction with hyperlinks to pre-colonial Australia might doubtlessly be shut down as its place in trendy Australia is questioned.
Cooks’ Cottage, in Melbourne’s Fitzroy Backyard, was initially constructed by the mother and father of British explorer Captain James Prepare dinner in Nice Ayton, North Yorkshire, in 1755, and dropped at Australia in 1934.
The cottage is adorned in 18th century furnishings and novelties, permitting patrons to expertise what life was like within the 1700s.
The town council is at the moment reviewing the viability of the cottage attributable to a decline in guests with the downturn worsened by Covid lockdowns, the Herald Solar reported.
Public sentiment across the cottage seems to be altering with guests leaving one-star critiques due to its colonial heritage whereas vandals have defaced the positioning.
The unfavourable reception has raised into query the appropriateness of the cottage in modern-day Australia.
Melbourne’s Cooks’ Cottage (pictured) could possibly be closed in a matter of months as they metropolis’s council considers falling customer charges and it is place in trendy Australia
A call on the attraction’s future from the City Corridor will seemingly be months away.
The cottages have beforehand been a lightning rod for anti-colonial sentiments, being vandalised simply two days earlier than Australia Day in 2014.
A spokesperson for Melbourne Metropolis Council informed the outlet, ‘No choice has been made to shut Cooks’ Cottage’.
Whereas Captain Prepare dinner by no means lived in the home, its significance to Australian historical past was vital sufficient to have it deconstructed and rebuilt in Fitzroy Backyard.
Australian philanthropist Sir Russell Grimwade bought the English cottage for round $80,000 in at this time’s phrases as a present to the state to rejoice a century since English settlement.
One among Sir Grimwade’s descendants, Fred Grimwade, stated the household not has any connection to the attraction.
‘Whereas I can not touch upon behalf of the prolonged Grimwade household or the Metropolis of Melbourne, my spouse and I help ongoing efforts to make sure that the cottage continues to be offered in a context and method that displays up to date social and neighborhood attitudes however is respectful of historical past,’ he informed the Herald Solar.
The cottage was vandalised in 2014 to protest Captain Prepare dinner as a figurehead of English settlement and mistreatment of indigenous peoples.
Anti-Australia Day slogans have been spray-painted onto the facet of the constructing, together with: ‘twenty sixth Jan Australia’s disgrace’.
It had been vandalised the yr prior when the phrases ‘Cappy Prepare dinner was a criminal killer liar theif (sic)’ have been additionally spray-painted onto its exterior.
Constructed by the mother and father of Captain James Prepare dinner, who has been the figurehead of anti-colonial sentiments, the cottage’s have been vandalised twice up to now in lead ups to Australia Days
Opinions of the cottage on-line have mirrored the vandals’ sentiments whereas others have slammed the fee to go to the venue.
‘As an indigenous First Nations individual I really feel oppressed by this house,’ a one-star overview of the cottage reads.
‘I feel first nations must be given a voice in how this place is offered.’
‘Wants extra data on the horrors dedicated on Indigenous Australians,’ one other overview learn.
One critic, a self described ‘historical past buff’, stated the expertise was not well worth the $7 entry charge when there have been extra traditionally important areas close by.
‘To pay 7 {dollars} to see a easy and cramped two storey constructing with some furnishings thrown in feels a little bit ripped off,’ they wrote.
‘You may admire the constructing from the skin with out lacking something (albeit some narration and knowledge boards), and the encompassing gardens make for a greater place to spend your time than to pay and enter this place.’