Heritage Museum

Come and step back in time to meet the early pioneers, convicts and original custodians of the land, the Parrdarrama Pungenna people at the Rosedale Homestead, Heritage Museum.  Through enhanced, interactive displays of industrial machinery and household items, hear stories of early settlers.

OPEN FRI, SAT, Sun - see our new entry fees

Tales to tell…

Through the windows of the settler’s houses and workplaces – from the laundry to the blacksmith’s forge to the dairy and local school – you’ll discover how hard they lived and worked each day.

Displays of early industrial machinery and tools of the trade show just how particularly resourceful and innovative these people were.

Gain an insight into the Parrdarrama Pungenna people who lived and survived on the Peninsula through a display created by the local aboriginal community.

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Local Tasman Peninsula people have generously loaned some items to share with you in the aboriginal and early pioneer displays, keeping alive the stories of their ancestors.

The Tasman Peninsula’s convict history is particularly well covered by the World Heritage listed Port Arthur Historic Site and the Saltwater River Coal Mines but there are plenty more tales to be told from the settler families of the area as they set to work building a fitting home for their growing number of historical treasures.

The museum includes an exhibition of early settlement and about the life of original custodians of the land, the Parrdarrama Pungenna people, which was put together by the local aboriginal community.

Discover the Story behind…

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Bellow Organ

Churches were a strong part of the early pioneers’ life, offering the chance to gather as a family to catch up with friends and neighbours on a Sunday and generally enjoy a morning out.

This bellows organ was made by Mason & Hamlin in Boston, Massachusetts and is operated by a foot pump.

It came to the Museum from the local church at Nubeena where it was no doubt used at many a happy family celebration and sad farewells. Imagine the voices it has heard in its history… some delivering the weekly sermon, others in devout prayer and those raised up in song as one.

Black Gold

Back in the early 1900s, osmiridium, a naturally occurring alloy, was used to make a variety of items – from fountain pen nibs to munitions. from jewellery to gases. It was much sought after and when the price rose to seven times that of gold, it became known as Black Gold and generated its own mining boom.

In December 1924, a prospecting party took to Tasmania’s remote South West. They worked along the South Gordon track as far as the Gordon River, and then back along Marriot track to the Adam River Valley and it was here they discovered the valuable osmiridium.

Thus Adamsfield, as it was subsequently named, quickly became a thriving mining town with over 1,000 people working and building.  Today if you stand where once the miners toiled, there remain just relics and the remnants of buildings. The valley no longer resounds with machinery and men hard at work, and the town is slowly being reclaimed by the surrounding bush.

The original prospecting party consisted of Messrs. E. Boden, A. J. Stacey, C. B. Stacey and A. Wright, 

The artefacts in this image were found at Adamsfield and are on loan to the Tasman Historical Museum from Dennis Turner.

Discover the story behind…

Discover the Story behind…
Roses from the Heart

25,566 female convicts were transported to Australia between 1788 and 1853. They faced tough lives and uncertain futures at the various convict female factories in Hobart, Ross and Parramatta and, until relatively recently, their history was largely unseen and known.

In 2007 Christina Henri began a project to commemorate all those women inviting people to make a bonnet embroidered with the name of a female convict, the name of the ship she arrived on and the date she started her life as a convict on the other side of the world.

Over ensuing years thousands of bonnets have been created, often by descendants of the convict women themselves which in turn brought families closer to their own histories.

In 2015, Tasman Heritage Museum held a ‘Blessing of the Bonnets” . These bonnets were made by local people in remembrance of their female ancestors.

whilst at the museum

Enjoy Our Restaurant

All the fun of meeting our animals is sure to make you hungry, whilst visitors can enjoy a picnic in the grounds we also have an onsite restaurant . Either enjoy a snack on our large veranda exclusive to park guests, or enjoy a lunch in front of the wood heater.

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School Packages Available

Rosedale Homestead, is the perfect place for school groups to visit. Our school package includes entry to the animal park with a chance to meet the animals up close, arena entertainment and entry to our heritage museum. Each child will receive a poster to remember their visit.

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Ideal for school groups

ANIMAL PARK

Come meet the animals at our Animal Park,
Rosedale Homestead,  where you experience A little touch of country

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