William Footer, an architect and surveyor, arrived in Dunolly in 1863 from Suffolk, England. He purchased some vacant land in Broadway, which during the rush had been Ernst Ernstsens's Criterion Hotel. In 1863, he built a brick lean to and fenced the land increasing its valuation from £10 to £19. In 1864, he added a brick residence and a garden, which at that stage was not finished. In 1865, the Dunolly and Bet Bet Shire Express reported that Footer was building himself a 'great house'. This became the imposing Footer's Mansion, which still stands today.

A wealthy mining manager, Walter T Hansford, purchased Footer's Mansion after William Footer died in 1868. He made money as a major shareholder of the Queens Birthday Mine at Goldsborough. He also purchased the allotments each side and built a substantial two storey brick stable. In the front yard, he built a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each fortnight when the Queens Birthday Mine cleared the gold out of their battery, he would fly a red flag from his tower for each 100 ozs that had been recovered. The most he ever flew was fourteen flags! Hansford died in 1906.

The property was owned for a time by a Minister before being purchased by a Miss Wilson about 1920. She renamed the place "Somerset House" and opened it as a private Catholic maternity hospital.