Category: The Sunday porch

The Sunday porch: interiors

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More well-furnished porches in Queensland, Australia. . .

5 Queensland porch interior, late 19th c., StateLibraryQueensland“Verandah at The Hollow, near Mackay, Queensland, about 1875,” photographer unidentified (all photos here), via State Library of Queensland Commons on flickr (all photos here).

I love the office setup on this very deep porch with an adjoining fernery or bush-house. There is also a sewing machine on the table between the two women.

These photos are not very clear, but you can click any thumbnail in the gallery below to scroll through larger versions.  There are four additional pictures there too.

7 Queensland porch interior, late 19th c., StateLibraryQueensland“Unidentified family on the verandah of a Cairns residence, ca. 1895.”

What a beautiful plant collection.

2 Queensland porch interior, late 19th c., StateLibraryQueensland“Furniture on the verandah of a Queenslander home, ca. 1925,” photographer unidentified.

The white chairs on the left with the extended armrests are “squatter’s chairs,” typical to Queensland porches. There are two more examples here.

“Verandah of Gracemere Homestead, near Rockhampton,” ca. 1940.
“Furnishings on a verandah of a Queensland home, ca. 1925.”
“Verandah at ‘Fairseal,’ the residence of W.C. Hume at Torwood, Brisbane, 1890.”
“Invicta, the home of the Kingsfords in Cairns, ca. 1888.”
“Verandah at The Hollow, near Mackay, Queensland, about 1875.”
“Unidentified family on the verandah of a Cairns residence, ca. 1895.”
“Furniture on the verandah of a Queenslander home, ca. 1925.”

Additional links:
Gracemere Homestead 1940 photo,  Rockhampton, Gracemere Homestead in 2001, GracemereHomestead history

W.C. Hume short biography, Brisbane, squatter’s chair

The Kingsfords, Cairns

The Sunday porch: tea party

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Tea on porch, 1887, State Library of Queensland, Australia“Group of women having a tea party in Queensland, Australia,” ca. 1887, photographer unknown, via State Library of Queensland.

Beautiful Platycerium or staghorn ferns on the wall and columns. These could be Platycerium superbum, which are native to Australia. The one on the left seems to be supporting another plant — maybe a coleus.

How quiet it is, how silent,
like an afternoon in Pompeii.

— Louise Glück, from “A Summer Garden“

The Sunday porch: Struan

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Struan, Arden, North Carolina, via Library of CongressGrape vines over the porch of an old outbuilding at Struan, Arden, North Carolina, 1938, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Struan, Arden, North Carolina, cropped, via Library of CongressDetail of the above; note the potted plants on the old ladder.

By the time Johnston photographed the old plantation of Struan for her Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South, the property had been a school for boys, Christ School, for 38 years.

Vintage landscape: Birdsnest, Virginia

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Bird's Nest Tavern, FBJohston, 1930s, Library of Congress “Old Birds’ Nest Tavern, Marionville vic., Northampton County, [on the Eastern Shore of] Virginia,” ca. 1930s, by Frances Benjamin Johnson, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. (Marionville was also known as Birdsnest.)

Beautiful summer meadow around the house. . .

Johnston’s notes on the photograph call the building a “sailors’ tavern.” It was probably one half to two miles from the creeks and marshes of Hog Island Bay on the Atlantic Ocean, maybe closer.

Her notes also say that it was “the first three story house in the country [county?].”

According to a 1927 economic and social survey of Northampton County, “[f]rom the low room in the middle of this building originated the name of ‘Bird’s Nest’.”

Unfortunately, I can’t find anything to indicate that it has survived to the present day.

When the world turns completely upside down
You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore
Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore;
We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town, . . .
We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown.

— Elinor Wylie, from “Wild Peaches“

The Sunday porch: relay station

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Baltimore stoop, J. Vachon, Library of CongressThis photo was among  a set of 1938 photos of Baltimore, Maryland, by John Vachon, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (all four pictures).

Dover, DE, Library of Congress“Resident of Dover, Delaware,” July 1938, by John Vachon.

Mail, Omaha, NE, Library of Congress“Morning mail, Omaha, Nebraska,” November 1938, by John Vachon.

Store porch conversation, Library of Congress“On the porch of a general store in Hinesville, Georgia,” April 1941, by Jack Delano.

And this.