Markree House Museum and Garden
Discover Markree House Museum and Garden, an intimate house museum located within ten minutes walk of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
Opening hours and admission
Saturdays (October to April) 10:30 am – 5:00 pm
Tuesday – Sunday for pre-booked guided tours only, at 10:30 am and 2:30 pm
Closed: Good Friday, ANZAC Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day
Admission: adults $10, children $4, concession $8
Special booking rates are available for groups, education programs and special events, and a joint ticket with the nearby Narryna Heritage Museum is also available.
Markree specialises in the social history and design of the early twentieth century (1900–50).
Markree was built in 1926 in the late Arts & Crafts Movement style by Bernard Ridley Walker for Cecil and Ruth Baldwin. Walker had studied in Britain and under Hobart architect and silversmith, Alan Cameron Walker, who founded the Arts & Crafts Society in Tasmania in 1903. The house contains a collection of woodcarvings by Ruth Baldwin (née Maning) and silverwork by Rosie Knight and the Sargisons firm which reflects this Arts & Crafts influence on the domestic interior and women’s artwork.
Markree’s rare, intact 1920s garden was laid out by Cecil Baldwin, who studied at the Burnley School of Horticulture, Melbourne where the informal style of leading English Arts and Crafts garden designers such as Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) was taught. The leading Australian garden designer, Edna Walling (1895-1973) also studied at Burnley and no doubt Cecil Baldwin and Edna Walling knew each other through projects at Ferntree and Sandy Bay.
Henry Graham Baldwin (1919–2007), Cecil and Ruth Baldwin’s son, left Markree, its entire contents and a significant endowment for the purpose of establishing a museum for the ongoing benefit and enjoyment of the people of Tasmania. This was the largest single bequest ever received by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
The house and garden are both listed on the Tasmanian Heritage Register as rare intact examples of an interwar residence and grounds. The house contains its original furnishings of the 1910s - 1930s together with older portraits and family heirlooms from Ruth Baldwin’s family – the Manings, Knights, Fletchers and Hones – who had come to Hobart in the 1820s as merchants, civil servants and lawyers.
Changing displays are arranged to highlight aspects of the collection and themes such as the Arts & Crafts Movement, women’s domestic artwork and 20th century architecture, garden design, decorative arts and social history.
Getting there
Markree House Museum and Garden
145 Hampden Road, Hobart (enter from Davey Street)
Phone: (03) 6211 4177
Email: markree@tmag.tas.gov.au
Access: The ground floor of Markree has complete wheelchair and mobility access.
Due to the age of the building there is limited mobility access to the first floor and garden.
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