Newsworthy Events

The ball at Cotta Walla - 1895

Confidently assumed to be the Cotta Walla Schoolhouse because Mrs Baxter (resident there) provided the catering.

The classroom is 8m x 6m and thirty couples including orchestra members would have been a tight squeeze. I assume the piano was an upright.

The schoolhouse at this time was still as originally built, with the original small kitchen with open fire for cooking and barely room for a small table. It would have been an occupational health and safety nightmare just preparing a family meal, and so catering for 60 people with those facilities and to do it without injury would have been a major organisational achievement. To alleviate just a little of the catering effort, not take up space that could be used for dancing, and protect the crockery and glassware from any overly enthusiastic activities at the other end of the verandah I posit that the parlour, which was between the kitchen and the verandah, was used to arrange and present the "excellent" offerings coming out of the kitchen. Attendees would have been able to mingle under the verandah with direct access to both the classroom (ballroom) and the parlour (catering).

The evening of Friday the 4th of October was only one day after the full moon and the grounds would have been naturally and sublimely illuminated. That month is still fairly cold in the evenings so, with the doors wide open, the fireplaces in both the classroom and the parlour would have been raging.

No doubt throughout the evening there would have been regular visits to the outhouses of which there were two, quite attractive little buildings in bluestone with limestone quoins to match the schoolhouse, one for females approximately 30m away on the near side of the playground and one for males approximately 70m away on the far side of the playground. Both well stocked with suitably divided past editions of the Crookwell Gazette.