LANDMARK & KLEGEND

“What’s remarkable is that this is not a museum, this is a family home so things are used and, inevitably, things are broken.”

You could create a timeline of Camden Park homestead through the china collections dotted throughout the house. There’s a Chinese exportware service ordered from Guangdong probably about 1812 and emblazoned with John and Elizabeth Macarthur’s initials. Then there’s a Coalbrookdale porcelain service decorated with the family motto Fide et Opera (By Faith and Work) and purchased by their older son, James, in 1838, on the occasion of his marriage to Emily Stone. Remarkably, thereceipt for this purchase from John Mortlock (China Man to Their Majesties Royal Family) also survives, and records that it set the couple back £100 4/- 11p. In a basement cellar there’s an astonishing array of bedroom china (chamber pots, jug and basin sets, hot water bottles), while in the kitchen there are remnants