SURVIVING TYABB gem By Tyler Wright Photos Yanni & Supplied
Sheila Martland is well versed in the world of collecting. After all, she has been in the business for more than 40 years and owns one of the largest spaces dedicated to antiques and old wares. What started as a hobby of her late husband, an interest inherited from his own father, eventually grew into their business: Tyabb Packing House Antiques. Mrs Martland called antique collecting a "disease". It's infectious. "Once you’ve got two of something and then you think ‘oh, I’ll get three’ and so on,” she said. 'The Shed' has a steady flow of customers from 11:30am on a Thursday. "This isn't busy," Sheila confirms. “The weekends are much busier.” In 1968, The Martlands packed their bags and moved to Australia from their home in England. With four kids in tow, the change proved challenging. “We had to sort of knuckle down and undergo a complete change of lifestyle.”
“It was a real pain, because it was a really dilapidated old building,” Mrs Martland said. After 13 years in Moorooduc, they took the plunge and purchased a property right next to a railway line in Tyabb – where the business remains. When you enter The Packing House, converted from what once was a storage space for apples and pears grown on the Peninsula, you are met with diversity. On your left – a jeweller and antique beds. On your right – thousands of books spanning from travel to religion. The space is designed so each separate chamber flows into the other, and you end up back at the start after doing a full circuit. Sheila said each room was leased to different orchardists in the area before it became a hardware co-op and then they took over in 1993. Each chamber is still marked with the name of a type of apple or pear - Jonathan and Democrat among the list of fruits. Continued next page...
It was when they met the Bradburys and joined to create the ‘Moorooduc Antiques and Old Wares Market’ that selling memorabilia and second-hand goods became a source of income. Months later, the couple were left to handle the business by themselves.
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E ssence
36 | PENINSULA
February 2021