Cities & Towns, Published 6 January 2026
If you’ve ever driven through Uki (NSW) and spotted a scruffy little slab hut looking like it’s one strong breeze away from becoming modern art, congratulations - you’ve found Henry Sweetnam’s Humpy.
This wasn’t just a house; it was the original “tiny home” long before influencers made it cool. Henry built it back when the Tweed Valley was full of cedar, sweat, and men who thought shirts were optional.
Sweetnam’s Humpy was basically the Airbnb of the 1800s - minus the cleaning fee and with a 100% chance of wildlife joining you in bed. Slab walls, bark roof, hand‑split timber… it was the kind of place where you didn’t live, you survived. Yet somehow, this little shack outlasted floods, storms, and probably a few questionable decisions, becoming a local celebrity in the process. It even photobombed half the historic pictures of Uki with Mount Warning posing dramatically behind it.
Today, the humpy stands as a reminder that Uki didn’t start with kombucha, crystals, and Sunday markets. It started with tough-as-nails settlers like Henry Sweetnam, who looked at the bush and said, “Yeah, I can live here - give me a tree and a sharp axe.” It’s a tiny, wonky, wonderful slice of history that proves even the humblest huts can become legends.
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