We visit Bygone Beauty's Treasured Teapot Museum in the Blue Mountains which boasts over 8,000 teapots on display!
You'll be amazed at the history and creativity that goes into these humble vessels for boiling water. We meet Maurice, the owner, and learn about the most unusual teapots in their collection, and find out why this museum is a must-visit for anyone with a love for the unusual and the quirky.
Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/roadshow-and-tell/id1666756225
Follow us on Instagram to see photos of stuff mentioned in this episode: @roadshowandtellpodcast
We visit Bygone Beauty's Treasured Teapot Museum in the Blue Mountains which boasts over 8,000 teapots on display!
You'll be amazed at the history and creativity that goes into these humble vessels for boiling water. We meet Maurice, the owner, and learn about the most unusual teapots in their collection, and find out why this museum is a must-visit for anyone with a love for the unusual and the quirky.
Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/roadshow-and-tell/id1666756225
Follow us on Instagram to see photos of stuff mentioned in this episode: @roadshowandtellpodcast
I live for the day that I can stop myself from buying Teapots,$800 people would pay for it.
Kate:Is the OAM for services to Teapots? Welcome to Roadshow and Tell, a podcast for people hoping to improve their pub trivia team score. I'm your host, Kate, and I'll visit museums so you can learn things you never knew you wanted to. Settle in and pour yourself a cup of Rosy Lee-that's rhyming slang for tea. In this episode, we're visiting a teapot museum and tea rooms in the town of Leura. Leura is a small town in the Blue Mountains, nearly two hours west of Sydney. I chat to Maurice, the owner, about all things tea, including the difference between traditional high tea and afternoon tea, how to spot a good op shop teapot, and what his favorite teapot is. Plus we take a stroll through the museum, which displays teapots of all shapes and sizes, including teapots shaped like little old ladies, a nest of chicks, Peter Rabbit, Master Piggy, a Harrod's gift basket, an English cottage, pinup model Suzy Cooper, the Tardis, Sylvester the cat, Humpty Dumpty, the Sphynx, and a watermelon slice. So today I'm at Bygone Beauty's Treasured Teapot Museum and Tea Rooms with Maurice Cooper OAM. Good morning, Maurice.
Maurice:Good morning young Kate
Kate:and Maurice, whose land are we on today?
Maurice:We're we're on the Dharug and Gundagurra First Nation land.
Kate:So this is a teapot museum and tea rooms, is that correct?
Maurice:That's quite correct. And we're in our 30th year in this building.
Kate:And how did Bygone Beauties come to be?
Maurice:Ron who started the collection, I came into it when there was 58 teapots. So I did not start the collection, but I think Ron would agree that I was the one that had the passion for the teapots, and I've had many collections myself. I started collecting silver plate when I was about eight years of age. I just had a fascination for that. But I've had some extensive collections. Obviously the silver plate moved to sterling silver and all the different variables of that throughout the world, and I still have quite a good collection of that. But back to the teapots. So I was looking to retire. Around about 45. And as you can see, I'm still here, and I won't see 75 again. So I I bought this building, which had been a restaurant and it seemed to be a good building. But of course I lacked knowledge of retail. I was in entirely different arena. And the long and the short is that I found very quickly that position is everything. And so I said to Ron, Why don't we put the teapots up on display? And because we're involved with two other shops in the mountains, we gave little vouchers for people if they purchased anything, to come here and have a cup of tea and look at the teapot collection.
Kate:And at this stage it was just 55 teapots, you said?
Maurice:No, no. By this stage we had the grand sum of 300. 300. That was a lot. And of course, this building is, has been extensively both renovated and extended.
Kate:There are over 12,000 teapots in the museum's collection, but not all are housed in the building. There are over 8,000 teapots currently on display in the building at any given time, plus more stock for sale in the museum store. Can you imagine doing a stock take on that?
Maurice:Well, believe it or not, I remember once when we advertised that we had 5,000, somebody spent some time and came back and said, I can only see 4,700. I couldn't believe that they counted them. And but then I was able to open all the drawer, underneath the display cabinets and say to them, Well, these are the teapots we haven't researched yet.
Kate:So Maurice's collection process requires that incoming teapots be researched and cataloged before entering the display. Some of the teapots for sale are original and some are duplicates, meaning replicas.
Maurice:And if I could be so bold to say, perhaps ones that I consider are not quite museum. And indeed, many curators of other museum would just see them as as objects rather than an item of museum quality. But I like nothing better than somebody will come in and say, I remember that one. My nan had that one. And, I'm sure it gives them delight, but it gives me a great deal of delight. Cause a lot of people have their collections packed up. No one sees them, but mine are readily seen.
Kate:Yeah. I love these ones on display here. So you think some people might call them filler teapots? But you see beauty in all of them.
Maurice:Oh, I do, I do. In fact, people sometimes ask me about my favorite teapot.
Kate:That was a question I had. Yes. Do you have a favorite?
Maurice:Well I do, of course I favour many, but there is one. My dad who had an engineering background, he knew very little about teapots and he lives in, lived in Adelaide. And in readiness for my visits, he would go around and find different teapots at different shops If he found a teapot, the shopkeepers got to know him and, he'd find the teapot and then he'd move a vase in front of it. Or he'd move a clock or a figurine so that other customers wouldn't perhaps catch the teapot. And he often would say to me they don't have a clue. But of course he didn't have a clue about teapots. He was a very intelligent cove. And anyway, one day he did find it particularly interesting teapot, not what most people would call attractive, and in fact, it had ducks flying on it. It's a very unusual teapot. And although it's an ugly duckling, I refer to it as my favorite because my dad found.
Kate:What a sweet story. We will visit this teapot later in the unique cabinet of the museum. Let's circle back to how you got into teapots. So your co-founder, he had the teapots, and then you had the passion. So how did your passion for Teapots come about?
Maurice:My passion for the teapots was that I thought I might as well love this as anything. And so I've devoted a lot of my time and effort and as I've said, as the years have gone by, I mean, I was in my late fifties, Early sixties when I realized that the teapots were worthy of preservation. I live for the day that I can myself from buying Teapots, and devote some money to a program where every teapots numbered.
Kate:So people collect teapots in different ways. Sometimes small collectors of 80 teapots may only have one of significance, but you have to purchase the whole collection. Maurice will often buy collections that include duplicate teapots of ones he already owns, so he can sell it cheaply to another collector or someone who wants to buy a good teapot at a reasonable price.
Maurice:And so our Trivet Terrace, which is our tea room, where we sell and serve multiple Devonshire teas. There's now quite a number of teapots that people can buy that are not new. They're referred to as a state or pre loved.
Kate:What's the most impractical teapot you have?
Maurice:Well, interestingly, a lot of people ask about that. And it's one that has six spouts.
Kate:Six spouts?
Maurice:Yes.
Kate:How do you pour tea?
Maurice:Right. It is a reproduction one. It goes back to about the 1960s. You know, it's an interesting thing in the West, the lady normally pours the tea, but in the east, like at an elegant tea partaking the man pours the tea and tea is made in a pot and then poured into a jug so that the host, is not giving one guest a weaker cup and another guest, a stronger cup. They get all the tea at the same strength, which is, like a, almost a uplift and humble way of looking at it. Whereas we pour, we normally say who wants weak? Who wants strong? And the weak one gets theirs first. And the strong one, we leave the pot for a bit later.
Kate:And that's because the tea has longer to to brew in the tea pot. Yes.
Maurice:Yes. Well, like so many variations in teapot, that one with the spouts, the multiple spouts, apparently it sat on a platform and the six handless cups, cause they don't have handles, they were positioned in such a way that when the pot was poured, it went equally into each six cup. So a bit like a lunar park arrangement.
Kate:Right, but that means you'd have six very weak cups of tea. Is that correct?
Maurice:Well, it depends. If you let the tea brew, you'd have six very strong cups, right? But whatever it was, the people that were receiving it received it equally. There was no weak or strong, and of course weak has certain connotations and strong has equal but very opposite connotations.
Kate:So it's a very democratic teapot.
Maurice:Oh yes, I'd say so.
Kate:It's the people's teapot.
Maurice:Yes, that's correct.
Kate:So a side note, Maurice got back to me after further research of this teapot, and it turns out its backstory is contested. Another version claims that the teapot is designed to avoid embarrassment to any guest. The Chinese believe that to point the spout at a single person is an insult to them. So if all the guests have a spout pointed at them, it is no longer an insult. Or, maybe all the guests are equally as insulted. A similar theory is to fill the cup means you want the person to leave, whereas half filling means that there is more to come and you are welcome to stay. So I'll let you ponder the mysterious provenance of this seven spouted teapot What's the most expensive teapot that you own?
Maurice:Now the best answer that I can give to that is that I was playing bridge one night and somebody asked me that question, and another lady who knew me far better said, Well, they're worthless because you're never going to sell them. I never elaborate on what is the most expensive, mainly because of security, but I'll give you a little bit of an in regards to that. They're made of different metals right from urbanware, right up to sterling silver with gold embellishments and what have you. So, throughout our life precious metals have always been valued more, but those of us who truly love things, some of the decorative arts are far more superior. So in a roundabout way, what I'm trying to say is the value is in the eye the beholder. Roughly, my dearest teapot, I think conservatively would be worth about maybe 17,000. And my cheap is probably, you pick it up in the Sally's or Vinny's, for a dollar.
Kate:Tell me about the tradition of a tea room and high tea.
Maurice:Well, it's a bit of an anomaly because you see high tea was really for the middle class, right? And it was quite often made up of leftovers. So you might have things like shepherd's pie, bread and butter pudding, a cake that had been made a few days ago.
Kate:This isn't the high tea that I'm familiar with.
Maurice:No, that's cuz you're so young. So, We used to advertise traditional afternoon tea, and every phone call without fail would say, but it is a high tea, isn't it? So eventually I just gave in. But a traditional afternoon tea, of course, is made up of all freshly prepared items. Predominantly for what was referred to as the upper class.
Kate:So traditional high tea is slops for the middle class, traditional afternoon tea, however, is for the upper classes-not necessarily the rich but the upwardly mobile educated sect of society.
Maurice:and so we refer to our traditional high tea as a copycat of traditional afternoon tea and a high tea, but all our food is fresh that we serve, and, we put a bit of theater into ours.
Kate:Oh?
Maurice:Yes, the waiters wear top hat and tails, white gloves, and it comes individually to your table, and you can see we use fine bone China of different periods. We use what is referred to as silver service. But of course it's silver plate and the one that I've chosen is Du Barry by Paramount, which was an Australian silversmith. And it's it's purely from the 1960s, but it reflects with a Georgian style. Okay, so Pre-Victorian. And anyway, the trolley arrives and by wifi we play'To the Land of Hope and Glory', and it's got the flags flying.
Kate:This is very theatrical.
Maurice:Oh yes, yes it is. It sets the stage for a very enjoyable afternoon tea.
Kate:Tea Cozies, what are your thoughts? Yes or no?
Maurice:Well, I've got four local ladies who make them for us and I think they're so talented. And I love them. And people that make tea, they quite often like to keep the tea and the pot warm, and by radiation, the heat out of the teapot will disperse. And the tea cozy, especially one that we've got, I call it the Crinolin Lady and how she it, but this one's a knitted one, some of them are crocheted and it creates like little air pockets. So it actually holds the heat Rather than dispersing it. So, it has a purpose, but of course with a tea cozy, the pot's lovely and warm and the conversation's gone on. So you can lift the tea, cozy, lift the lid, and recharge the pot and put tea cozy back.
Kate:Yeah, it's the perfect accessory.
Maurice:Yeah, I think it's a great accessory.
Kate:Do you warm up the teapot with boiling water before you serve the tea?
Maurice:Well, of course it will depend whether you are making black tea or green tea, cuz both of them are prepared at different temperatures. with black tea, I always think it's recommended. See a lot of people like their tea very hot. If you're going to just put tea leaves into a cold pot and then put the boiling water in, cuz it should be boiling, then obviously by heat dispersion into the cold vessel, you're going to end up with a colder cup. And we live here in the mountains, have lived up here for 47 years, and I can assure you, before we had all the modern things of air conditioning and central heating and all that, we would put our tea cups into the oven.
Kate:Into the oven to warm them up?
Maurice:You would be so cold in the kitchen, you know, even with the fuel stove going, the kitchen itself, you'd get the China in those days often the China was in, in a cold cupboard, and you'd just get it out. You'd, you wouldn't have baked them in the oven. Yeah, but you'd open the oven door cause it was a fuel stove and you'd shove the cups in and then you'd make your tea and then you'd bring your cups out, being careful that they hadn't got too hot and you'd have a lovely hot cup.
Kate:So it really depends on what type of tea you're drinking to how you prepare it, and at what temperature.
Maurice:We do have 30 different varieties of tea on our menu and some of those have to be prepared at different temperatures, especially like the green tea. If you've ever had green tea and found it bitter, it's because people have made it with boiling water. It needs to be made at perhaps washing hand temperature. So about 68 to 70 degrees, and that's why we have kettles now that you can adjust. At that temperature green tea is always sweet. If you're in a Chinese restaurant and you serve tea, some people say it's cold, but it's not cold. It's the right temperature. It's perfect temperature for green tea. It's the perfect temperature, and the tea itself is very sweet.
Kate:So what makes a good teapot? Are there certain teapots that are good for herbal tea and ones that are good for black tea, or are all teapots universal for all the tea types?
Maurice:I think it gets down to personal taste. I have a dinner guest who refuses me to use a teapot that is past 1830. Now I'd call that a bit snobbish. But nevertheless, I try to provide that for them cuz to be a reasonable host, you should at least do that. Now, a lot of people say that the best teapot of the lot are the old brown bettys, which were predominantly urbanware. Now I tend to agree with that a bit because I had an Irish grandmother. So, I leave it to personal taste.
Kate:So, Maurice, your name is Maurice Cooper OAM... is the OAM for services to teapots?
Maurice:No, it's not. I don't think it got a mention. Oh, really? No. Look, I got that, but my partner should have got that as well. It's just how things are done, isn't it? And I got that for my services to this community. My partner is Kerry and Kerry and I have, devoted is the correct word, devoted a good part of our life to the community, and we've done variable things. Anyway, collectively it was the biggest highlight of my life from a public point of view.
Kate:Oh, good on you both. Congratulations for that.
Maurice:He should have got one but anyway, that's how that goes..
Kate:Maurice So should we go and look at some teapots?
Maurice:Yes, I'd be delighted, Kate, if you come and have a look at some of my teapots.
Kate:What's this one? It says musical tea.
Maurice:Oh yes. This one's fascinating. This one's the wedding one. Okay. It's the wedding march. They're mechanical.
Kate:Wow. And the tea's in there.
Maurice:Yes. It's contained in there in a packet like that all sealed. And they're celebration teas. So all of those are black. And we identify our teas as black, caffeine free and green.
Kate:Tea tip number one, don't buy tea that's wrapped in cellophane or clear materials so that you can see the tea leaves. Tea is supposed to be kept in a dark place like a tea caddy. We enter the museum section of the building and it's full of glass display cabinets, which are filled with obviously teapots. The first cabinet on the left starts your teapot journey with Anglo-Saxon teapots, and then we move our way through the multicultural teapots.
Maurice:And I always thought the English drank the most tea, but per population, the Irish did.
Kate:Is it the Irish?
Maurice:It's the Irish that did, yeah. And of course some of those statistics change from year to year and but
Kate:So I tried to fact check this, but it really does depend on the year. According to statista.com, Ireland has the second largest tea consumption in 2016 at 2.2 kilograms per capita. However, that is second only to Turkey at 3.1 kilograms per capita. And England does take the bronze in global tea consumption that year.
Maurice:you can see there's really beautiful teapots. Look at this one. This is a Victorian we've got here date unknown. That's because we haven't actually found the date. But you can just see by the busyness of it. Some of these are done purely by transfers. Some of them are hand painted.
Kate:Oh, wow. But they all look the same.
Maurice:Oh, they've got different motivations. This one is a hand painted scene. This one is, a decal or a transfer.
Kate:So these two teapots are both from the 1940s and look like teapot siblings, except one is a decal and one is hand painted. Both scenes look like a picture from different months of the English thatched cottage" calendar and have gold rims around the painting.
Maurice:And you can see that one back there. All that handle was hand painted. So there's lots of different things that we are looking at addressing. I just hope I have a bit more time to achieve some of these things. But that's that's one that a lot of people are intrigued with.
Kate:The next teapot we inspect is incredible. It's made of jade, so the color is light green and almost translucent. The body of the teapot is a rooster crowing. The handle is the rooster's curled tail around its behind, and the tea spout is the rooster's elongated neck, releasing a crow.
Maurice:That's Jade. And we know a bit about the provinence because I purchased that in Adelaide. It came from Hong Kong and it was the repayment of a debt in 1908. But yeah, it was a gambling debt too. The lady that I bought it from, it was her great aunt that gave it to her, and her father was a sailor, and was gambling in Hong Kong and the boat had to leave and this man owed him money and he obviously was honorable. He said, I don't have the money, but this is worth the debt. And the man accepted it and came back to South Australia. And when I arrived they said that they would never sell it. And as is my case, I asked them, but who will it go to next? And they told me they really had no one for it to go to. So I was there nearly an hour enjoying their hospitality.
Kate:But alas! Maurice did leave with the teapot,
Maurice:and I think they enjoyed the amount of money that I got.
Kate:Now we arrive at the unique cabinet.
Maurice:And this comes to my unique one.
Kate:So this is where your favorite teapot is?
Maurice:Yes. And you can see it is a bit of an ugly duckling, isn't it?
Kate:It's beautiful in a unique way.
Maurice:Yes, it is. It's a very small pottery in Japan.
Kate:This is Maurice's favorite teapot he mentioned before. It looks very handmade. It's small and brown with white geese flying on it, and flowers hand painted in the background.
Maurice:And this one I had a secretary for 36 years and you know, I get teapots for birthdays, Christmas anniversaries or whatever. And then one on my desk was a little parcel. And I undid the know, the package and it was a teapot. And this is Morris Tetley. Now my name's spelled the French Way. That's spelled the English Way. And this was a celebration of tetley tea in the nineties. And I said, why even the glasses are similar. And you know what she responded? She said in the figure as well. I've lost a bit of weight since then. I used to be quite, quite a fixed set person. Now this is a very interesting teapot. You can immediately recognize it as Essexware. It was Australian, it was made here in Leura. It was a couple who came from Essex and they created a kiln up in the rather posh part of Leura and it was very successful. They made lots of things. Remembering it was the 1950s and sixties and it was predominantly ashtrays cuz a lot of people smoked and it was little like souvenir dish, what we call pin dish and little mini vases. And then of course there were like little trios like this.
Kate:Hot tea tip number two, more like an op shopping tip- when you're checking out ceramic teapots in op shops, because I know that you do, if you turn it upside down and see that Essexware Leura is inscribed on the bottom, buy it immediately. Not only are they beyond beautiful and functional, they may be worth a pretty penny today.
Maurice:You're too young to know Kate, but this is an identical replica of the annodized tea sets, you know, in pinks and greens. And, you'd see them around Newtown now, very collectible.
Kate:In the same cabinet, there's a short, beautiful, cylindrical clay teapot with Aboriginal motifs on it, including a fish and some intricate patterns around the lid.
Maurice:And this man from Arnhem Land, First Nation man, he did all these designs and he did this to celebrate his parents' 25th wedding anniversary. Asked them if he could make that beautiful and collection, I've got it in night collection. So I'm very excited. And look, here's one commemorating the centenery of the crossing of the blue mountains.
Kate:Oh, so it's Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson on a teapot.
Maurice:Yes. And of course they crossed in May, 1813. Now we've had the bicentenary. And oh, yes, this is souvenir ware. I like this. This was for the tea totallers, you know, not to have any drink. You know where that comes from. Teatotollars, you know?
Kate:Oh, the word.
Maurice:Well, they drank totally tea. They didn't have any beer. The most common drink in England was beer because, water could be infected and all that sort of thing.
Kate:So get that- a teatotaller was somebody who drank totally tea, no alcohol!
Maurice:And this one here, the Independent Order of Rechabites. And I've got a full tea set in that. If I get something, I don't believe in divorce, so if I get something I pack it all up, we've got an area upstairs as big as this, not open to the public. So that's where the sets go with that.
Kate:And now we move onto the animals and characters cabinet.
Maurice:And course these are gorgeous. I'm very fond of these. I try to put these ones down, so the kids can see the little clowns and what have you. This is one of my favorites. I got this many, many years ago at the Rozelle markets in Sydney. And I feature that on a lot of our advertising and when people come in, they want to see that teapot. It's obviously a little doggy and I love dogs, so it is prominent. You know, you have to remember, I spent a great deal of my life here, so I'm a bit selfish as to what I do with things you see. And then there's these little ones.
Kate:Also in the cabinet are miniature tea sets. The teapots are about the size of a thimble. Do people actually drink tea out of these?
Maurice:Oh, well this was for children to learn how to have a little tea party. So all these are miniatures. I feel that the Brown Bettys need to be acknowledged.
Kate:The Brown Betty is a type of red clay teapot that became very popular in the Victorian era. They are instantly recognizable by their brown glaze and very round body, which allows the leaves more freedom to swirl around as water is poured, releasing more flavor with less bitterness. They are still much loved today, and you can find them in op shops.
Maurice:Some of may have been very fortunate to have lived up in a household that had China and all that, but I certainly came from a background where Brown Betty and I love this one, I found this one up at Tweed Heads. I used to use that in my teapot talks. And you know, this would be a very expensive teapot because all that's hand worked. It's all hallmarked and you know, And I just keep it here with the Brown Bettys, you know? So, but I like anything like that.
Kate:There's a cabinet of character teapots. For example, a Royal Dalton policeman and felon with an English cop on one side and a bank robber in bank robber uniform that is black and white strap shirt with a black mask on the other side. There's also a Long John Silver teapot with the pirate character from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.
Maurice:Some of these aren't that old. They're a little bit, novel. I quite like them cops. I mean, some of these go right back, yeah, it's just what grabs you. I think they're all different. They're all unique. One of my young fellows was quite good on Facebook and everything. And he put this on, You couldn't believe how many people followed it, like, to me this is nothing. Anyway, it went, what do they call it? Viral. It went viral. I said, Oh, you can pick which ones you put on now. But if something comes in out of Dr. Who or Star Wars or something, they write in.
Kate:The teapot that went viral is a cute one with a painting of Mother Rabbit putting a child rabbit to bed. It looks straight out of a Beatrix Potter book.
Maurice:But see things like, this is what get me. Now this is the one that Lord Wedgwood.
Kate:So the Wedgewood company was started by the English Potter, Josiah Wedwood in 1759. He revolutionized certain forms of pottery, including green glaze, black basalt, and Jasperware. The company still exists today and is especially known for unglazed stoneware called Jasperware in contrasting colors, especially a pale shade of blue that's known as Wedgewood blue.
Maurice:That goes back the 1690s. Yeah. And see this is what he became known for. But I tell you something I learned from teapots, so I'm looking up. I did You know, Evolution of Species and Darwin, Origin of Species, and Charles Darwin, and I was reading up about a Wedgewood tea palette. Do you know who Charles Darwin's mother was?
Kate:No.
Maurice:Louisa Wedgewood.
Kate:Really?
Maurice:Okay. And she married Charles' father, and that's how they could afford, he came through here, you know?
Kate:He did. Yeah.
Maurice:And that's how he could afford to do all that, you know, from probably
Kate:the teapot fame.
Maurice:Yeah, the teapot fame.
Kate:So side note, Josiah Wedgwood married his third cousin Sarah, and had eight children. Their first born Susanna, not Louisa, married Robert Darwin and indeed became the mother of Charles Darwin, who also kept it in the family by marrying his cousin Emma Wedgwood.
Maurice:Yeah. So you learn a lot. And so hidden in amongst all those, the sterling silver ones, I've got them all. You know, Sterling silver the best is Russian. But the 935 part s in a thousand silver, so very soft, and then the English standard is 9 25.
Kate:Hot tea tape number three. If you're going to buy yourself
Maurice:the English because of, European is 800. Orient is 600, and that's a Mexican one at 450. Anyway, years ago, a teapot like this. I'm not joking, you know,$800 people would pay for it. And things have sort of settled down, but because these are so unique, and they truly are, they'd be worth a lot of money when we're talking about how much. But I'm not interested in selling them. I just want people to admire them and I particularly want people to identify how periods have changed. This is a lot of this is referred to as Mourning Teapots, M O U R N I N G,
Kate:Morning teapots are very rare. The trend of mourning teapots started when Prince Albert died in 1860.
Maurice:Because Queen Victoria, you know, they say her and Albert's was a true love match and she ebonized everything and she wore black from the day he died. You might be aware that if you were over 40, you were expected to wear black for two years and then purple for the next year, right? If you are under 40, you only had to wear black for a year and purple for six months.
Kate:That's right. Writer Patricia Lundy in her essay"Mourning and Tea: how the Victorians found Identity Through Grief" says that wealthy widows would be outfitted in a monochromatic wardrobe of raven, drab clothes known as"widows weeds" for the first year of mourning. But poor women would have to dye one of their existing dresses black, lest they be seen to not mourn properly, which would render their marriage effectively invalid in the eyes of the community.
Maurice:And that was because no decent gentleman would ask a lady that was in black to go for a ride in the park, so that they could get to know each other until she was out of that. And you know, when you see royalty at things like ANZAC and everything, do you notice they always wear purple? Well, you will now. I will. Yeah. You'll pick up on it.
Kate:So a royal in black, swipe left. A royal in purple, okay to date. Now you can watch The Crown with a renewed sense of interest in their wardrobe choices. Maurice, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
Maurice:It's been a pleasure, Kate, and uh, I hope I haven't bored them too much.
Kate:The museum is kid friendly and has animated and miniature teapots on lower displays. During school holidays, the museum is open seven days a week except public holidays. Outside of school holidays, it is open five days a week except public holidays. The tea rooms are open from 10:00 AM with last orders at 5:00 PM before closing at 5:30. The admission fee for the museum is$5 50, which is refunded on purchases over$5 50. The museum has a number of accessibility features such as accessible unisex toilets, a self-closing and automatic lift, and disabled parking. There's no steps within the museum or tea rooms. How incredible is that? I truly didn't realize there was so much to know about Tea and teapots until talking with Morris. Now I'm off to pour myself a warm cup of Jasmine Green Tea. Thanks for listening to Roadshow and Tell. If you enjoyed this deep dive into a specialty museum, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode. We're a new podcast. So if you wanna help support us, please share it with a friend and leave a rating and review. If you are involved with or know of a regional or specialty museum that should be featured, please get in touch at roadshowandtell@gmail.com. I'm your host, Kate. Roadshow and Tell was edited and produced on the lands of the Gadigal people. I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the various lands on which you may be listening from, and the lands that the museums featured in this podcast reside on. I also acknowledge any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people listening to this podcast. I pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging, and celebrate the diversity of Aboriginal peoples and their ongoing cultures and connections to the lands and waters of Australia.