The Heritage Council has a lot of explaining to do …

The heritage-listed Victoria Inn in Tunbridge is currently being offered for sale for $895,000 on the basis that it is an “iconic colonial property circa 1834”. This claim is demonstrably false.

According to the Heritage Council’s data sheet, the inn was built in the 1840s. However, I have just completed a booklet, The Truth about the Tunbridge Wells Inn, which proves beyond doubt – in my opinion – that the Victoria Inn was built around 1851.

The real estate agent has confirmed that the 1834 claim in the sale advertisement is based on a booklet – A Brief History of the Victoria Inn (2016) – written by Carol Bacon who is a member of the Heritage Council. Ignoring overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Ms Bacon has also claimed that a nearby heritage-listed property, long and widely known as the old Tunbridge Wells Inn dating from the 1820s, was built as a farmhouse around 1870.

In her booklet, a copy of which I purchased from the Oatlands History Room for $20, Ms Bacon does not declare her membership of the council, or her friendship with the owners of the Victoria Inn. Ms Bacon has also disregarded the Heritage Council’s own data sheets – plus all the history books, newspaper reports, sale advertisements, census forms, letters, legal documents and survey maps – which demolish her central claim that the Victoria Inn and the Tunbridge Wells Inn are “one and the same”.

I have a personal interest in this matter because my ancestor, Callington Mill builder John Vincent, owned the Tunbridge Wells Inn in the 1840s; he never owned the present Victoria Inn.

The Heritage Council has a lot of explaining to do about Ms Bacon’s booklet because it was sold to members of the public while the council was delisting more than 1600 properties from its heritage register. The man hired to manage the delistings, David Scott, resigned in 2015 claiming “concepts of open communication, accountability and transparency have all but disappeared.”

Six months later, former Heritage Council chairwoman, Dianne Snowden, said: “Our heritage is too important to be tinkered with in this arbitrary and politically motivated way.” As far as I know, hundreds of owners of heritage-listed properties in the Midlands have still not been advised about the status of their properties.

Apart from the real estate advertisement, the owners of the Victoria Inn are advertising their property worldwide on AirBnb as “an 1830s coaching inn” – and they have a sign out the front which wrongly states that the inn was built in 1834.

Tourists, AirBnb guests – and especially prospective buyers – rightfully expect that the historical information they are given is correct. Surely this is a matter for the Heritage Council; and if it refuses to act then Premier Will Hodgman, who is also the Minister for Heritage, must intervene.

• Copies of my booklet are available from the Oatlands History Room …
Bob Casey