Owners of the Wy Yung Hotel, Jacqui Allen and Antony Hilf, recently made a rather interesting discovery while renovating the pub.

The couple, who was forced to close the popular venue, due to the coronavirus crisis, decided to spend their time making improvements.

“We were just trying to keep ourselves busy,” Ms Allen said, when they pulled away plasterboards which had been hiding the original IXL stove in the cookhouse room.

“I originally made a small hole in the plaster just to get a glimpse of the old stove,” Mr Hilf said.

He sent a picture to Ms Allen who then turned up with a hammer to rip the entire façade away from the original wood-fuelled stove.

The couple was stunned by the condition of the large oven.

“Everything works on it. It even has a bread oven,” Ms Allen said.

Ironically, the original pub, which was built in 1873, burnt down 20 years later in 1893, but the cookhouse survived.

The pub was rebuilt with its re-opening in 1895.

Ms Allen and Mr Hilf were in for a further surprise when they found a drawing of the publican, who owned the pub when it went up in flames, neatly tucked away in a corner on top of the stove.

After dusting the cobwebs off, they found Honora Roder looking back at them.

Mr Hilf, who is originally from Paris, France, is trying to determine who was responsible for the sketch, which was completed in 1893, the same year the pub burnt down.

He has enlisted the help of his father, who resides in France, and believes there’s a strong possibility it could have been Sir Charles John Holmes, who was the director of the Natural Portrait Gallery in London.

Sir Charles was a prolific etcher, and according to Mr Hilf, was in Australia at that time.

The couple is keen to turn the cookhouse into a private dining room and no doubt Honora Roder’s portrait will gaze down upon the diners.

“I want this room to be as original as it can be,” Ms Allen said.

“I’ve always tried to keep true to the character of the pub.”

Paint over the original bricks around the stove will be sandblasted to reveal their authenticity.

“It needs love and it needs some light,” Ms Allen said as she looked around the room.

With the pub now under forced closure the couple concedes renovating without any money coming in is difficult.

“Our overheads are massive, but the government’s help seems to be pretty good so that is getting us through,” Ms Allen said.

To get by and pay the bills, the pair is conducting drive through takeaways of an evening.

They’ve stuck to the their regular pub menu offering takeaway parmas, lamb ragu, ribs and gnocchi.

Orders are phoned through and upon arriving at the pub, the maximum wait time is five minutes as the meal is finished off.

Ms Allen admits her background as a manager at McDonalds has come in handy.

While normally busy from one day to the next, Ms Allen says the slower pace of their usually frantic lives has allowed them to spend more time with their one-year-old daughter, Abby.

IMAGE: Antony Hilf and Jacqui Allen found a drawing of Wy Yung Hotel’s publican in the 1870s, Honora Roder, while renovating. K279-5867