A hundred years of wool, four years empty, and then six of us with a grate, a stack of felt and more ironbark than sense.
Since 2022
What was under the dust
The lining boards came off first and behind them was ironbark framing with the classer's chalk marks still on it. Those walls stayed exactly as they were found.
Four classing benches were stacked at the back of the building. Three were sound, one was firewood, and the three sound ones are now tables one, three and six.
The grate took the longest. Cutting a proper flue through a sawtooth roof without touching the trusses cost us a winter and most of the budget.
Six staff
Split between the coals, the bar and the floor.
Seventy seats
Across the dining end and the benches together.
One flue
Cut through the roof, and the reason we opened late.
What we hold to
Three things settled before we opened
A game stays a game: no stake, no pot, no prize and nothing to settle at the end.
If the coals are not right, the dish comes off the board rather than out of the kitchen.
Nobody leaves the shed to drive when they should not; we will ring for a car first.
Before the door opens: are you 18 or over?
This is a licensed shed for adults — a charcoal kitchen at one end and card benches at the other.
