Queanbeyan City Council does not usually horse trade, but it will when it comes to six horse-drawn carriages almost forgotten after years lying at the back of its works depot.
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The council wants an expert in carriage restoration to outline how they could be restored, and hopes at least one can be put on public display.
The council's heritage advisory committee chairwoman Sue Whelan said the carriages came from one of two museums at Watson that operated during the Canberry Fair era. They were offered to the National Museum of Australia, passed over as surplus to requirements, and ended up in Queanbeyan's works depot, where they have sat for at least a decade.
Some have paintwork, while others have bare, sun-bleached timber and rusting iron. They were drawn to the attention of the heritage committee by council staff. The committee decided to call for expressions of interest to restore the best of them.
"What we are looking for is that one of them is kept for Queanbeyan. Whoever takes them can do whatever they want with the others," Cr Whelan said.
Interested restorers had indicated already at least one of the carriages was a sulky, she said. None appeared to be Queanbeyan specific, but the sulky was indicative of what was used in Queanbeyan in the horse-drawn carriage era.
"That one would be the good one for Queanbeyan Council to put on display. We will need to work out where we will display it and how to protect it."
The long-serving councillor has a favourite carriage.
"It's the one they said was most expensive. That's about par for the course for me. "
A sulky could cost between $6000 to $8000 to restore but Cr Whelan's favourite would cost much more.
"It would be really nice if someone came to us with a proposal that 'I'll do this in return for that', and no money changes hands," she said. "But we are open to anything."
The project was all about Queanbeyan's past and valuing its history, including its transport heritage, she said.
"We all look at fast cars, which get us from point A to point B, but back then they had to be a bit slower, a bit more leisurely. If we lose the understanding of that and our heritage and where we come from, we are lesser for it.
"Queanbeyan's history is not the history of the wool towns like Yass and Goulburn. Queanbeyan's heritage is the working men who came to build Canberra.
"I talk about Queanbeyan as the city which came to build the national capital. It is probably the only city in the world that helped build its national capital, so Queanbeyan's heritage is the small workers' cottages around, the heritage areas around Campbell Street and Kathleen Street."
