Curio

State Library of New South Wales
J. Green's Victoria Pie & Coffee Rooms, (Bath's Hill?), Hill End

J. Green's Victoria Pie & Coffee Rooms, (Bath's Hill?), Hill End

1872
Glass photonegative

Pie and Coffee establishments were common on the goldfields and the Victoria probably set the standard. Mrs Green perfunctorily dispensed her brew into ironstone crockery from a large urn. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, 25 May 1872, in Hill End:

… the plan of sharing shops is by no means uncommon. Thus you may get bread and butcher's meat at one place; church services and clothing at a second; law and tobacco at a third; oysters, tarts, and grog at a fourth; and so on ad infinitum.

From ‘To Hill End and back’, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 Dec 1872

Saturday night is a great institution in digging and reefing townships. It is so at Hill End. Cafes and continental music halls turn devil’s advocate, disturb the peace, and make vice attractive to the unwary. (‘To Hill End and back’, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 Dec 1872, p5)