LANDMARK AND LEGEND

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 imprinted 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, the receipt 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 of everyday and special occasion tableware that chronicle the Macarthur family’s 184-year occupancy of the imposing sandstone house.

“What’s remarkable is that this is not