FOR the first time since the completion of extensive restoration work during the last two years, Henry Lawson Cottage will be open to the community on Sunday as part of its official opening.
The cottage is located in Daalbata Road and was originally constructed in 1912 and served as a base to demonstrate and develop vegetable farming in the MIA.
The two-bedroom building is one of the earliest surviving examples of the cottages provided by the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Trust for new settlers.
Henry Lawson Cottage Committee chairman George Weston was looking forward to the official opening.
"We're excited to be able to share this part of Leeton's history with the community," he said.
"It's a building that was facing demolition, but has been refurbished and returned to a role serving our town."
In 1916, Australian poet Henry Lawson was employed as a publicist for the MIA on a salary of two guineas a week and the use of the cottage, which he occupied with his housekeeper from January, 1916 to September, 1917.
The poet described the farm as "a two-acre block, with an orchard and gum saplings along the fence and a clear 'channel', with raised banks at my front and back gates".
-Read the full story in the July 15 edition of The Irrigator
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