Last time I men­tioned that I had to pick up what I made at a work­shop that’s pret­ty far from where I live. So I was look­ing for some­thing else in the neigh­bour­hood at the same time. The Montgomery’s Inn muse­um was just one sub­way sta­tion away from the work­shop, so I thought I’d stop by. AND it hap­pened to be a Wednes­day, there’s farmer’s mar­ket going on every Wednes­day until Octo­ber, and the entrance to the muse­um is free dur­ing mar­ket hours! Lucky me :D

The muse­um docent was busy lead­ing anoth­er group when I went in, so anoth­er friend­ly staff gave me a self-guid­ed tour pam­phlet and sug­gest­ed that I walked around on my own. I’ve always had trou­ble with maps and direc­tions… so I found myself pret­ty much just wan­der­ing around in a huge house with no one else in it, which gave me the chance to take as many pic­tures as I want­ed, and to take as much time as I need­ed, wait­ing for the right light­ing and so on.

The one tak­en above is of the din­ing par­lour, viewed behind the door from the kitchen. I’m quite hap­py with it because it actu­al­ly looks like an old pho­tograph with a fil­ter from the Cam­era+ app on my phone.

The Montgomery’s Inn was built about 1830 for Thomas and Mar­garet Mont­gomery, and it served many trav­el­ers, new­ly arrived immi­grants and labour­ers until about 1855. The couple’s descen­dants sold most of the inn’s con­tent after they passed away, so the muse­um is restored with col­lect­ed fur­nish­ing to the peri­od of 1840s-50s. I sup­pose some of the only things in the house that were orig­i­nal to the house would be the bricks around the fire­places…

… and this sign for the inn and appar­ent­ly the grand­fa­ther clock :)

Tea set, and sewing box by the win­dow in the sit­ting room :D

Rise and shine in the children’s room.

One of the things that’s very dif­fer­ent from oth­er his­toric house muse­ums I’ve vis­it­ed is that the inn has guest rooms! It looks quite cozy.

If you haven’t noticed already, I par­tic­u­lar­ly like how light comes through the win­dows in his­toric hous­es. Because the hous­es usu­al­ly don’t have arti­fi­cial light in them, and sun­light looks par­tic­u­lar­ly warm on old wood­en floors, hand­made cur­tains and linens, weath­ered fur­ni­ture.

There were the­se love­ly hand­writ­ten labels on the bot­tles in the pantry.

And on the staff room’s door :)

Water­ing hole. Not so dif­fer­ent from a bar today, minus the cage I guess.

If you’re ever in the neigh­bour­hood, it’s quite an inter­est­ing place to vis­it! Like I men­tioned before, there’s a farm­ers mar­ket on Wednes­day after­noons until Octo­ber, and it’s got live music, BBQ and food truck, plus of course local pro­duce, baked goods and sweets, and free entry to the muse­um. Then on Sun­day the museum’s tea room serves after­noon tea, which I hope to catch one day. And there are lots of oth­er arts and cul­tur­al events too.

Some­times, I won­der why I don’t work in a muse­um. Hmm.

Hope everyone’s hav­ing a won­der­ful week! :D