About
Ambleside Park Museum is a local history museum housed in a century old farmhouse. Two of the rooms contain displays depicting a parlor and a bedroom early in the twentieth century. The School Photograph Collection is a popular section of the museum, especially with people who have had family members attend school in Knox. Approximately 25,000 photographs are kept in this room. Other displays show aspects of the development of the area from a series of farming communities to the City of Knox. The area depended on agriculture and a large collection of farm machinery and implements are on display in the garden and in the tool shed. A two room cottage, the tool shed and the former porch of St Bartholomew's Anglican Church are part of the museum complex.
Our collection
Ambleside Park Knox Historical Society and Museum Collection (1977)
This collection, established in 1977, features the Ambleside Park homestead and its outbuildings, containing period furnishings, fittings and equipment, together with artefacts (including agricultural equipment) and photographs relating to the history of Knox (including a Schools Photographs Collection). A research centre houses documents, photographs, newspapers, books, genealogical records and audio-visual material for local history and family history. The former porch of St Bartholomew's Anglican Church forms part of the building complex. The land on which the homestead now stands is part of the Parish of Scoresby. William Edwards was granted a licence by the Crown in 1872, but two years later his licence was revoked. The following year the property was taken up by Edward Perry Amesbury, who then sold his interest in the land to Edmund Wicks. When Edmund Wicks died in November 1880, his widow sold the property to Ephraim Hansen who received the land title in 1887. Before building the homestead in the late 1890s Ephraim Hansen had built an earlier house, part of which still stands at the back of Ambleside near the old shed. Ephraim Hansen died in 1942 aged 90 and the property was inherited by his son, also Ephraim Hansen. In 1950 Ephraim Hansen junior died and the property was sold. Oliver and Mable David bought the house and in 1970 the house and two acres of land were bequeathed to the local council. On the 28th of May 1977, Ambleside Park was officially opened as the headquarters of the Knox Historical Society Inc.
Themes: Building towns, cities and the garden state, Building community life
