Mount Erin Heritage Center manager Susan Bradley. Photo: Chris Roe.
The Mount Erin convent, sitting on the hill looking north across the city is an iconic feature of Wagga’s architecture and history.
Sue Bradley runs the Mount Erin Heritage Center and will open it up to the public this weekend.
“So many people, Catholics and non-Catholics wouldn’t have any idea of the significance of these buildings and would never have been inside them,” she said.
“It just gives people an opportunity to come and have a look, particularly if you’re a history buff like me.”
The Mount Erin convent was built in 1876 and has been home to generations of Catholic school boarders over the years.
“It links all the way back to the first school and the many women who joined the Presentation Sisters convent here in Wagga and then moved on to other areas and established convents elsewhere,” Sue said.
Sister Barbara Webber is one of those women who graduated from boarding and joined the Presentation Sisters congregation.
She explained that the story began in 1874 when five Irish sisters set out from Kildare in Ireland to start a school in the colonial outpost of Wagga Wagga.
“When the five sisters answered the invitation, it was because the parish priest had written to the bishop to get some nuns to come to Wagga because the women of the town were completely out of control,” she said.
“From these five women, the Wagga congregation was founded and they came to educate, and that’s really that’s what we did.”
Sister Barbara was part of the group that established the Mt Erin Heritage Centre to celebrate the contribution of the Presentation Sisters.
“We are aware that as a congregation we are dying out, and we didn’t want this wonderful story to be lost,” she said as she gestured around the room filled with displays.
“We are actually standing in the very first school here in this room. This front part here is the original building that was opened in 1876.”
Sue said she hoped locals connected to the school would come and look at the refurbished buildings and the spectacular chapel that adjoins the centre.
There is also a broad collection of artefacts including uniforms, habits, liturgical objects and everyday relics from the boarding school.
“Two of our volunteers here who were borders still had their cutlery from when they were here in 1960,” Sue said.
“Each piece of cutlery and their serviette ring has their name inscribed on it.”
They have also begun screening footage from a rare reel of coloured film.
A group of Presentation Sisters in 1875. Photo: The Presentation Society.
“The footage dates back to 1942 when two young girls, aged seven and eight, came from Sydney to Wagga to escape the war and the invasion of the Japanese,” Sue said.
“It’s remarkable that it still exists, and you can still listen to those young girls as women talking about their experiences of coming to Wagga.”
Sisters Barbara and Alexis will both be at the Mt Erin Heritage centre for the open day to share their stories and show people around. Sue will encourage visitors to make a morning of it and check out the adjoining Erin Earth urban woodland garden.
The Mount Erin Heritage Centre at 10 Edmondson St will be open on Saturday between 9:30 am and 1 pm.
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