Lanigan Abbey Estate, Gundagai review: Mind your manners

Bruce Elder spends an evening with his eccentric host in a restored former convent.

Bed and breakfasts can be divided into those where the hosts live separately from the customers and those where the customer has to become part of the family. Lanigan Abbey Estate definitely fits into the latter category.

Searching for the entrance, we arrive via the back door and a narrow corridor. We enter the dining and breakfast area where the television is on, an ironing board is still up and the usual chaos of a lived-in room – papers and magazines piled up, towels covering chairs – is in evidence. We are greeted by two small, ageing Maltese terriers. Later they join us for dinner and, because of their tendency to wander through the house, a plastic barrier is needed to keep them from climbing the stairs to join the occupant of the Irish State Suite.

The place is owned and run by the eccentric art dealer Brian Tozer, who used to run Bandamora Art Gallery in Katoomba.

He has taken the Sisters of Mercy Convent in Gundagai, built in 1888, now heritage- and National Trust-listed, and turned it into a six-room bed and breakfast, an art gallery and an Italianate square where functions can be held.

Tim Fischer was farewelled here by the Catholic citizenry of Gundagai and environs before he departed to fulfil his ambassadorial post at the Holy See.

Tozer spent years repairing what was effectively a ruin – it had been derelict and unoccupied for a decade – and has turned it into a celebration of Victoriana, realist rural art and rural Catholicism. The original chapel, which is still consecrated, has been beautifully restored and contains the original eight seats once used by the nuns.

The result is a strange combination of an elegant old convent, which was consciously designed as a smaller version of Rippon Lea in Melbourne, stuffed to the rafters with dubious art and antiques (lots of porcelain and Aussie landscapes) and with, perhaps surprisingly, a number of attractive themed rooms with deliciously comfortable beds. Inevitably the original plumbing and internal design have meant that some of the rooms – notably the Rose and Blue suites – do not have their own ensuites.

Gundagai is not known as a centre of culinary excellence – although the Niagara Cafe in the main street was much admired by Prime Minister Curtin when he stopped off for a late-night meal in 1942 – so Tozer does a three-course evening meal for $65. He prefers it if you BYO wine but will sell you a half a bottle of good red for about $10. The meal is suitably rustic – fish and prawns for entree; roast pork with a novel apple, apricot and liqueur sauce and perfectly cooked potatoes, carrots and broccoli for main; and small choux pastry tarts with a helping of fresh cream for dessert.