The heritage Brown Hill cottage destroyed by fire last Wednesday night was her great-grandfather’s family home. 

“I go past the house a lot and I thought, ‘Yes, that’s definitely the one’,” she said. 

Mrs Mann, nee James, said she had never been inside the house on the corner of Humffray and Thompson streets. But she has been told of the house’s history from a young age. 

Mrs Mann has recently helped complete the James Family History: Before and After Chakal book with her cousins. 

Her great-grandfather Thomas James and his wife Matilda lived at 353 Humffray Street from 1854. The pair moved to Ballarat prior to the Eureka uprising.

An early James family photo was taken outside the house in 1874, which shows Matilda and her youngest sons, John, William, Everett and Thomas and daughter Mary.

Mrs Mann said the house had been remodelled by her grandfather John in 1890. It was reclad again in 1980. 

“John was a builder ... you can see the legacy he left in Ballarat in notable buildings on which he worked,” she said.

The Statuary Pavilion in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, the tower on the former Congregational Church and the Titanic Rotunda roof in Sturt Street are some of John James’ work. 

Thomas James died in a mining accident in 1869, leaving Matilda to raise the children at the Brown Hill house. Mrs Mann is unsure of what happened to the house after the youngest, William James, moved out.

“That remains a mystery to us,” she said. “We don’t know where (Matilda) went after that.”

Mrs Mann said the James family lived in the cottage until 1900. 

Neighbours told The Courier following the fire  the cottage had not been lived in for years.

kara.irving@fairfaxmedia.com.au