Hi Ros,
Great sleuthing...! So, the photo I posted of the King's Arms Hotel wasn't an early version of the Sir Walter Scott Hotel, but actually Thomas Armour Davidson's Hotel in Neerim South, West Gippsland. It was built in 1902 & he transferred the license in 1918. There's still a hotel operating there & the name changed only recently to the Neerim South Hotel.
I noticed from a map that there is a Crossover Regional Park nearby & Eve referred to the family hotel as the one at Crossover, which I took to be a colloquialism for Tambo Crossing, but now seems likely that this was where Myra brought her girls when Arthur died, not to the original hotel owned by Thomas Davidson Sr. But maybe that's just Eve conflating the two locations to make a better story. The area has more agricultural & cropping use than the grazing land around Tambo too, which fits in with Eve's later stories.
Thomas Davidson Sr's will was written in 1890 & left everything to his 3 sons: Charles, Thomas Armour & James. No mention of his wife, daughters or youngest son William (14 in 1895) at all. Thomas' brother William predeceased him & there's an interesting codicil stipulating James must amalgamate land left to him by William with his brothers' adjacent land in a partnership or be disinherited.
There's no mention of the hotel in the assets, Charles would've been 29 & Thomas' occupation was grazier, so a big ? around the Sir Walter Scott Hotel legacy...