The house

From dockets and crucibles to eight card tables

What the assay office did, what survived a century of other tenants, and what we put back deliberately.

Opened 2021

What was behind the plasterboard

Four tenants in a hundred and fifty years had each lined the walls over the top of the last. Behind the final layer were the sandstone counter, the pressed metal ceiling and a chalked column of figures from the year the office closed.

The balance came back from a collector in the district who had bought it at a clearing sale in the sixties and gave it back on the condition that it stays under glass and stays here. It does.

The strongroom was full of a plumber's stock. Cleared, it turned out to be the quietest four metres in town, and it is now the passage the long games sit in.

Six on the crew

Kitchen, bar, door and floor, most from the district.

Seventy people

Across both rooms, and we hold to that number.

Eight tables

Four under the lamps, four along the strongroom passage.

What we hold to

Four things settled before we opened

A game is a game: nothing is staked on it, nothing is won from it and nobody settles up afterwards.
Nothing original gets thrown away — if it was in the building in 1875, it stays in the building.
Seventy people and no more, because the room was built for hushed conversation and still sounds like it.
Nobody leaves a long evening without a taxi being offered, and offered a second time at the door.

About the building

What visitors ask about the fittings

Does the balance still work?

It does, and it stays under glass. Ask and one of the crew will show you the counterweights.

Can I sit in the safe?

Two armchairs, first come. It is the most fought-over corner in the house.

Are the docket books real?

Every one of them, and the last entry is dated 1911.

Is the building heritage listed?

Yes, which is why the wiring runs where it does and the lamps are where they are.