SHIFTING TIMES AT BLUNDELL'S COTTAGE, CANBERRA

his is the story of how a house became heritage ‐ a history of the construction of heritage by locals, bureaucrats and planners, romantics, revisionists and professionals. The house now known as Blundell’s Cottage constitutes a microcosm of the history of activism in Australian heritage conservation, from the local historical society to the Register of the National Estate to the assets of cultural tourism. The discourses that shaped the house’s preservation have shifted three times in fifty years as has its management regime. This article introduces the house as a dwelling, then as an element of a managed landscape, and gradually as an item of public cultural infrastructure. Next I review the house within a history of changing regimes of heritage management: beginning as a relic worthy of ‘saving’, becoming a minor tourist attraction and increasingly constituting an object of professional heritage managers’ attention. Last, I survey the character of Australian history presented via the preservation of the building, its curtilage and the objects displayed. While the article is structured by the methods of history it is also coloured by the voice of my own experience, for I was a voluntary guide, a member and later Chair of the Board of Management and a heritage professional with expertise in site and collections management. I took a lot of pleasure in my involvement with Blundell’s Cottage: satisfactions grounded in personal interactions, professional achievements and the sense of contributing to the conservation of my local history. Despite having heavy duty credentials, I still felt the frustrations of being situated as a volunteer activist in an increasingly professionalised milieu which is a rare experience for those lucky enough usually to be paid for heritage work. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the time and energy of the volunteers who transformed Blundell’s for posterity. Canberra people, and perhaps a much broader slice of visitors as well, have been their beneficiaries.