Not much is known about Robert Pitcairn before he arrived as an early settler in the remote settlement of Deddington, in north-eastern Tasmania, but one thing is certain. He knew how to build a handsome house.
Nile Farm rises like a blazing edifice out of the plains, a red brick beacon that's spotlit by late afternoon sunlight, such a startling symbol of solitude that it prompts instant action. Stop the car. Wind down the window. Take a photograph of this lovely apparition before it vanishes.
Continue further down the dirt road to a driveway curled in front of a magnificent courtyard and you might glimpse the owner, Carol Westmore, tending quince and fig trees abundant with fruit. “Lots of people stop to photograph the house,” she says, sliding open the bolt at the garden gate. “Sometimes they knock at the front door asking 'Did John Glover live here?'”
Most pilgrims to the foothills of Ben Lomond are searching for the 1832 stone cottage built by English painter John Glover. Patterdale
