Franklin House

A Georgian mansion from 1838, the finest historic house in northern Tasmania

Franklin House stands on the Hobart Road about eight kilometres south of central Launceston, in the suburb of Youngtown. It is a two-storey Georgian mansion built in 1838, all red brick and symmetry, with a verandah, sash windows, and the restrained elegance that characterised Regency-era domestic architecture in the British colonies. The interior is furnished as it would have appeared in the mid-19th century, with New South Wales cedar woodwork throughout.

The National Trust runs the house as a museum and a place for morning and afternoon teas — the heritage tearoom is one of its main draws, serving scones and cakes in the dining room. The house is one of the best-preserved Georgian residences in Tasmania, worth the short drive south from the city centre if you have any interest in colonial architecture or history.

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A story
Franklin House was built in 1838 for Britton Jones, a Launceston brewer and innkeeper, who reportedly modelled it on the Georgian houses he had known in England. All the interior joinery is New South Wales red cedar — Tasmania had no suitable timber for fine woodwork at the time — shipped from the mainland at considerable cost. The house was later used as a boys' school before the National Trust acquired and restored it.