A ghostly old house

from w
A framed pastel picture above my piano is of a very old house near the Barwon River and a strangely shaped tree. I took a photo of the picture but the light caused a white spot which looks like a ghost. Must be the glass. Anyway I messed about with the picture - as usual! I like to see how different it can look by changing the colour or tone or by cropping. This is a historical house perhaps recently sold as it was up for sale. It had been used for receptions in recent years as well as tourist tours. The name of the property is Barwon Grange and it was built in 1855 for merchant Jonathan Porter O'Brien who had emigrated from Liverpool.

(from a website promoting tourism in Geelong) 'Visitors to Barwon Grange will experience a spirit of time and place in an elegant early Victorian suburban villa built for upper middle class merchant, property financier and banker, Jonathan Porter O'Brien. This property captures and conserves a particular interval of time - a tableau from August 1855 to July 1856 - reflecting the family's affluent life style in Geelong prior to their return to Liverpool England.'

Do old houses scare you? Perhaps in the dark at night - and you think of the history - is it possible the early owners of this house were part of the new settler gangs with shotguns who hunted more than just kangaroos - because some terrible things did happen those days to the indigenous people in the Geelong region.