Collections

The collections of the Historic Houses Trust are distributed across our portfolio of 10 museums, a State House and a research library. The house museums Meroogal and Rouse Hill House & Farm have collections that are historically significant for their survival within intact decorative schemes and as a living archive of a now vanished way of life. The furniture collection at Rose Seidler House, on the other hand, forms one of the most important twentieth century post-war design collections in the country.

At Elizabeth Bay House, Elizabeth Farm, Susannah Place and Vaucluse House – where the original collections have been long since dispersed - the HHT has developed specific site collections to support the historical interpretation of these places as house museums. The collections at Hyde Park Barracks, the Justice & Police Museum and the Museum of Sydney on the site of First Government House have also been developed to support the historical interpretation of their buildings and spaces and Government House has a collection which is both historically significant and appropriate to its function as working state house.

The HHT has also developed the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection to support the Historic Houses Trust’s work of interpreting and managing places of cultural significance in New South Wales and to provide a specialist research resource for scholars, heritage and conservation practitioners and museum professionals.