Chamber 22 - Broom Park

Written By Gareth M.

Chamber 22 - Broom Park was the chamber in the middle of the main building, likely one of the oldest parts of the building. It was accessed through Chamber 21 - Pippin or Chamber 23 - Statesman.

Through 1993 to 2024 it had only had two dealers within this chamber.

When Tyabb Packing House Antiques first opened this space held the "Broom Park Gallery", this made it the only dealer to actually use the name of the chamber in their business name / marketing of their space.

The gallery did not remain for more than a few years, later The Guild Gallery in The Village became to go-to location for local artists.

Into this space came Peter French Antiques, having moved from his store location on Hampton Street, Hampton at some point after 1995.

As with Chambers 11, 20, 21, 23 and 24, this chamber had an opening into Chamber 26 - Sheppards Delight, which also let in a generous amount of natural light. 

In the late 1990s Peter French Antiques elected to block this opening into the Chamber 26 citing that "sunlight ruins furniture", the blocking of this chamber opening also gained him additional display space for larger pieces of furniture. But decreased the amount of 'flowability' of visitors throughout the building.

Book Browser which had books in Chamber 26 also gained additional shelf space in their area as a result of this.

Like most of the older chambers in the Packing House this chamber had the original cooling pipes high up on the walls, these cooling pipes were greased to prevent corrosion. Unfortunately over the past 100+ years since their installation they had become quite dirty, although remained very greasy. 

For Peter French Antiques the pipes became a vexed issue, as in extremely hot weather the grease had a tendency to melt a little bit and drip onto the floor, or in the case of his space, onto his furniture which he had often spent countless hours restoring. After a number of years of this issue in around 2008 some time was spent by him and management removing all the cooling pipes from his chamber.

As the years have worn on, the age of the building has begun to show its passage of time, especially in this chamber where the floor has sunk near the walls. This is because these areas took the heaviest of the apple crates – being where they were stacked first in the cool rooms.

In 2024 the owner of Peter French Antiques, Peter French passed away after a short illness.

Note: Images have dates written in YEAR-MONTH-DAY format, as there is a mix of mediums of images with some having more exact dates than others.

More information

  • This chamber had an internal phone mounted on the wall of this chamber nearest to the opening into Chamber 23 - Statesman, which could be used to contact the Front Counter.

  • Only this chamber and Chamber 13 - William have no direct natural light coming into their chambers, every other chamber has some form of natural light visible into their spaces.

  • After 2023 when the carpet was removed from Chamber 24 - Bartletts, this chamber now has the oldest carpet in the Packing House, having been laid in 1995.

  • This chamber featured in an episode of Seven’s “The Great Outdoors” in 2003, with Ernie Dingo speaking with Peter French in this chamber.

External links

Other obscurities

Front Counter | Front office | Lay-by room | Internal phone system | Fire and emergency systems | Power, Heating and Cooling

Gareth M.
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Chamber 23 - Statesman
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Chamber 21 - Pippin