The Lil Miss and I had an adventure. It was quaint. It was quirky. It was scrumptious. We will be doing it again. Many times I suspect in years to come.

We had afternoon tea at Dolls at the Mount. Sadly it has no web presence I can link you to but I can tell you it is located at 54 Mount Street Heidelberg (Victoria, Australia, The World). It’s an Edwardian house just a couple of minutes walk from Heidelberg train station. You must ring the door bell to enter. The first room beyond the entry is an old fashioned tea room. Tables adorned with plastic lace tablecloth and old floral trios (cup, saucer and plate for the uninitiated). Lots of heavy lace and fabric curtains. Very old world. The place to make you think about your dear old Gran. Lots of dear old Gran’s sitting down having tea too. I hear bookings are advised on weekends.

The room beyond contains a ‘doll museum’. Cases and shelves of dolls of all vintages. There is a basket of fabulous old fashioned dress ups and a corner of toys that can be played with. The room has a large table in the middle which caters to birthday parties for school age girls. I also noticed hen’s nights can be booked there. It would be brilliant for a cross between a hen’s night and a kitchen tea. Uber kitsch. Dolls can also be brought in for restoration or valuation.

On the menu are a variety of tea options. Afternoon tea, morning tea, high tea, Devonshire tea. The tea itself is delicious. I’m not sure what brand they use but it was lovely. The scones however are something else. Scone perfection. Don’t expect them to be served the instant you order. Not possible. They are only baked once you have ordered them. The wait is not unreasonable though, scones do only take about 15 minutes to bake. Texturally, my scones were absolutely perfect.

It’s not a cheap version of afternoon or morning tea but I felt the cost was well justified. Lil Miss had a teapot of pink lemonade and her own little china cup and saucer to drink it from. She also four decent sized love hearts of fairy bread which was scattered with lollies (that’s candy for the North American readers). Mean Mummy plucked them off though. I had a pot of English Breakfast tea (perfectly brewed) and a serve of chocolate delight scones, which consisted of two perfect scones with choc chips inside, served with a dish of chocolate ganache sauce and a dish of freshly whipped cream. That came to a total of $19.80. As it was our first visit, we were allowed to sit in the doll museum room to have our tea. I had much difficulty extracting Lil Miss when it was time to leave. She was in heaven.

My one sadness about today’s adventure is that my dearly departed Mum is no longer with us. Taking a granddaughter to High Tea was something she fantasised about and Dolls at the Mount would have tickled her fancy like nobody’s business. High Tea was one of our favourite things to do and it’s moment’s like today that I really feel her loss so very keenly. And the loss of my children in never having known her. But it will be a wonderful place to take my daughter and tell her stories of the Granny she never knew.

UPDATED TO ADD: The cheese and vegemite scones possibly surpass the chocolate. But then I’m more a savoury girl than sweet. Oh my goodness those scones are good!