Travels with Mary - Stories from the Suitcases exhibition at Saumarez Homestead

And it's all thanks to a chance discovery.

The exhibition features recently-found photos and original documents, postcards, maps and an array of stunning art deco travel posters - found in 2014 inside a set of attaché cases - collected by Mary White throughout her voyages through the United Kingdom, Europe and Scandinavia from 1939-1947.

The various documents, tickets, brochures, newspaper cuttings and letters on display at the exhibition has enabled a reconstruction of two overseas journeys made by Mary White in 1939 and 1947.

The timing of these trips provides insights into travel between Australia and Europe before the outbreak of WWII and in the period immediately following the war.

As well as being a photographer and woodcarver, Mary White was a keen artist and admired many Australian artists.

The Travels with Mary - Stories from the Suitcases exhibition will also feature two Lionel Lindsay paintings which belonged to Mary White.

Attendees of the exhibition can also join one of the What We Know About Mary tours of the former White family home.

The exhibition is suitable for all ages with free entry for children.

Open every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday from 10am to 4pm, until June 12.

The Australian Heritage Festival is the nation's largest community-driven heritage event and it is coordinated annually by the National Trust of Australia, supported by the NSW Government through Heritage NSW.

The White family purchased Saumarez in 1874 and worked the property until they gave the 10 hectares that included the historic precincts to the National Trust in 1984. The rest of Saumarez was split up and sold off by 2004.

The ten-hectare grazing property was first inhabited by British settlers led by Henry Dumaresq in the 1830s.

Today it includes an extensive, fully furnished Edwardian homestead, built between 1888 and 1906 and 15 farm and other buildings dating up to 1910.

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