The Tenterfield Saddler, immortalised by Peter Allen, is up for sale, and fans of the Australian songwriter are calling for government intervention to preserve its history.
This modest, two-room building was raised in hand-cut local blue granite, timber and tin on the high street of the northern New South Wales town in 1870. Word was that bush poet AB ‘Banjo’ Paterson was a regular customer.
It’s now a destination for Peter Allen pilgrims and staffed by volunteers.
The building – and the brand it fronts – was listed by Lloyds Corporate Brokers this week. The sale includes associated trademarks and intellectual property. According to the listing, there has already been interest from a number of big name investors including David Jones and Meat & Livestock Australia.
Saddleries were once as common as service stations, and Tenterfield’s only enduring example would probably have disappeared were it not for two powerful actions in the 1970s.
The first was the listing of the premises by the National Trust in 1972. The second has everything to do with the pair of red tap shoes still on display in the saddlery window, once worn by Tenterfield’s most famous son: Oscar-winning singer-songwriter Peter Allen (1944-1992).
“It’s full of history and Peter Allen memorabilia … it’s well worth a look,” says Tenterfield resident and saddlery volunteer, Keith Law.
“It’s a tiny little tiny place but there’s a lot to see.”
The venue is always “fairly busy”, he says, and visitors mainly come because “they’ve all heard the song”.
Law is not sure what a new buyer would do with the place, other than keep it going.
“I don’t think if you bought it you could do a lot to it,” he says. “There’s charm in what’s in there at the moment. It’d be a shame to change everything.”
According to Allen’s biographer Stephen MacLean, Tenterfield Saddler was penned in 1971 after Allen found an old news clipping about his late grandfather, renowned saddler George Woolnough (1884-1963), outlining the plan to dedicate a library at the University of New England in his honour.
At the time, Allen was staying with his mother, Marion Woolnough, at her Bondi unit during a career hiatus and his impending divorce from Liza Minnelli.
A rhyming ballad, the song tells a multi-generational tale of the Woolnough family: the saddler, George; his troubled son, and a grandson who gets away. The chorus evokes journeys along country roads replete with kangaroos and cockatoos, but the inclusion of the suicide of Allen’s father lends Tenterfield Saddler a pathos that arguably places it alongside Paterson’s Waltzing Matilda.
When Allen recorded it for his 1972 album of the same name it made a small splash in the American music industry; but, according to MacLean, this quirky country track got him noticed as a songwriter.
In recent years, the Tenterfield Saddler has become an unofficial temple to Allen’s legacy. Members of the LGBTQ+ and show business communities regularly drop in to experience the place that inspired the song he wrote about trying to reconcile an international performing career with his country roots.
Performer Todd McKenney – who created the role of Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz musical – slipped into Allen’s red tap shoes when touring through Tenterfield in 2018. Hugh Jackman played the role on Broadway.
McKenney put out a call to those who performed Tenterfield Saddler to get behind a push for government intervention, to secure what he calls part of “the nation’s heart”.
“I obviously have a massive personal connection to Tenterfield and particularly to the saddlery because of my love of Peter Allen and his music and story which is well known to everyone,” McKenney wrote in an Instagram post.
“For the last 25 years I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing the effect the song Tenterfield Saddler has on audiences around Australia and it means the world to them.
“Out of all of Peter’s hits, Tenterfield Saddler is the song everyone wants to hear … let’s make sure we don’t lose this piece of Australian history.”
