Great Central Hotel, Glen Innes, NSW.

 

For me, staying overnight in the beautifully restored Great Central Hotel at Glen Innes was one of the highlights of our six day Canberra trip.  The hotel was established in 1874, and features a parapet which conceals much of the iron roof.

We nearly didn’t make it.  It was a Sunday night, and when we arrived at about 6pm, there were lights on inside, but all the doors were locked.  Fancy not being able to get into a pub at 6pm!  Luckily, I was able to find their phone number and rang them, while standing forlornly on the doorstep, and they came and let us in.

 

The new owners must have spent thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of dollars on paint alone.  The entire building has just about repainted inside and out, and there are 17 rooms for accommodation. There are new curtains everywhere, and the rooms all have new beds and linen.  The old fashioned towel rail was a nice touch.

 

Robyn and Doug had Room I and I had Room 1A.  My room opened into theirs, and didn’t have access to the main hallway, but I did have my own french doors leading onto the beautiful veranda with its wrought iron railings.

 My french doors had new curtains.  Notice the tongue and groove wooden walls and the old fashioned circular light switch. 

 

Robyn and Doug’s room had some rather splendid velvet chairs.

 

One of the aspects I personally enjoy about these old hotels is the shared bathrooms - as long as they are clean, and these were spotless.  You can have no pretensions when you run into other guests in the hallway, in your pyjamas, clutching your towel and your toothbrush.  There was a group of rather affluent bikers from Toowoomba staying there as well – about our age and very friendly.  It was much nicer chatting in the hallway about the delights of the open road than being sealed up in a sterile ensuited motel room.  The bikers have been staying at this pub “for years”.   

 

In this bathroom, the old enamel? signs had been retained.

 

It was a nice hallway for conversing with people in your pyjamas.

 

On the door of the ladies’ bathroom, the painter had carefully painted around the old “Ladies Bathroom” sign.

 

When I was photographing this penny farthing, one of the bikers pointed out that I wouldn’t get very far on it.

 

TV room.

 

The shared kitchen had obviously been updated since 1874, but still fitted in with the character of the hotel, and was bright and pleasant to use.  The bikers had all left by 6am – maybe they had to go to work – so we didn’t see them for breakfast.

 

The tiles in the beautiful downstairs foyer may well have dated from 1874.

 

Next morning:  View of the veranda from my french door.

 

View of my french door – or maybe it’s another one, I’m not sure.

 

View from our veranda to the Imperial Hotel diagonally opposite.

 

Not much seems to happen in downtown Glen Innes on a Monday morning.

 

Goodbye to the beautiful Great Central Hotel.  My room was the one at the left hand end behind the power pole.  You can see that the iron-roof-concealing parapet only extends as far as the first section of the veranda.  However, I did not feel deprived in any way by not having a parapet over my room.  In fact, it was a wonderful experience of the best of a bygone era.