Sunday, June 25, 2023

Victorian Sydney - Overview Of Sydney Atchitecture

 


Victorian Sydney - Overview Of Sydney Atchitecture 


As late as the middle of the 20th century, Sydney was still a Victorian City, one that had its own intern replace the earlier colonial town.

As late as the middle of the 20th century, Sydney was still a Victorian City, one that had its own intern replace the earlier colonial town.


Here in there, in the commercial centre, appeared a towering building of steel and glass somewhat like a gold tooth in a discoloured, Victorian mouth. A few tattered early colonial buildings remains like power, goes from a vanished age; But elsewhere, the Town Hall, the Cathedral’s, many of the hospitals, houses, and most of the office buildings, came into being while the Queen Victoria lift.

But elsewhere, the Town Hall, the Cathedral’s, many of the hospitals, houses, and most of the office buildings, came into being while the Queen Victoria lift.


In the bin business area, there were Edwardian buildings, and a greater number from the period of the 1930s, whilst Modern shops ran in and broken ranks Burnett Street awnings. But a glance at the buildings above the awning is revealed, statistically, predominant Victoriana. In the commercial areas, all the changed considerably in the years 1955 to 1960 when the third Sydney appeared with your Matic suddenness, as Victorian Sydney began to decay. The Victorian public buildings largely remain; the Victorian office buildings have fallen, and are falling, like weeks to weeks talk before the reaper.

modern shops ran in unbroken ranks, Burnett Street awnings. But a glance at the buildings above the awnings revealed, statistically, predominant Victoriana. In the commercial areas, all the changed considerably in the years 1955 to 1960, when the third Sydney appeared with traumatic suddenness, as Victorian Sydney, began to decay. The Victorian public buildings largely remain; the Victorian office buildings have fallen, and are falling, like weeks to weeks talk before the reaper.


But in the shopping area of the centre of the city, although the shops continually replace themselves, the buildings above still have Victorian, visually separated from the shops by the awnings; a curious mixture of the work of the 20th and the 19th centuries.

But in the shopping area of the centre of the city, although the shops continually replace themselves, the buildings above still have Victorian, visually separated from the shops by the awnings; a curious mixture of the work of the 20th and the 19th centuries.


Stretching, mainly West, which from the centre of the city is a core Victorian suburbs, about which whole groups of new suburbs of growing, but this colour, the head of the octopus, like plan of modern Sydney, has been built before 1900.


These old suburbs are, too, now period with modern buildings, which, in time will grow, and multiply, until they sweep inside the earlier work, but in the meantime, some of the loveliest living areas of Sydney of those with Victorian houses in graceful churches dream among the century, old graves of trees trees that are great grandfather’s planted.

These old suburbs are, two, now pitted with modern buildings, which, in time will grow, and multiply, until they sweet beside the earlier work, but in the meantime, some of the loveliest living areas of Sydney of those were Victorian houses in graceful churches dream among the century, old graves of trees trees that are great grandfather‘s planted.


In time, as the trees are cut down in the buildings, vanish, with then we’ll go, Victorian Sydney, and its architecture, the visible framework of the story of a fascinating era.


By 1850 be early colonial period in Australia was passing away. New South Wales has been found as a convict settlement, but now the transportation of convicts, except to Tasmania, had ceased. The progress of agriculture in grazing, we’re growing in mining, and the increasing flowers, immigrant settlers, we are slowly changing the status of the country. As the colonial atmosphere send out, the outlines of a nation began to emerge.

By 1850, the early colonial period in Australia was passing away. New South Wales has been founded in a convict settlement, but now the transportation of convicts, excepted, Tasmania, had ceased. The progress of agriculture and grazing, wool, growing in mining, and the increasing flow of immigrant settlers, we’re slowly changing the status of the country. As the colonial atmosphere send out, the outlines of the nation began to emerge.


Charleze Fitzroy was to see changes that were beyond imagination when he arrived from England in 1846 to take up residence in the present present. Government house in Sydney. Completed only one year before, the great classic pile of government house itself in no way resembled to colonial architecture of the town that they spread along the valley, just to the Westwood. It was a pleasant town of Georgian Architecture, created under the influence of true colonialism that had carried on from the 18th century, the development of which work has been examined elsewhere. But the forces of change were at work, and, as always, architecture with reflect them.


architecture, created under the influence of true colonialism that had carried on from the 18th century, the development of which work has been examined elsewhere. But the forces of change were at work, and, as always, architecture was to reflect them.


The autocratic governance have disappeared into history, as New South Wales approached the brink of self-government. Sydney, which had been the only considerable town in Australia, which to find its importance, is capital of the colonies, diminished proportionately as Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth crew in great Capitals of their own rich districts.


For a while, it was intended that New South Wales should keep control of the other Australian colonies, and Charleze Fitzroy and said William Denison from 1846 to 1861, each carried the title of governor general of her Majesty’s possessions in Australia, but this was more designation than the fact of authority. There are immediate successor, so John Young, boy is the even more nominal title of governor in chief.

For a while, it was intended that New South Wales should keep control of the other Australian colonies, and to Charles Fitzroy and said William Denison from 1846 to 1861, each carried the title of governor general of her Majesty‘s possessions in Australia, but this was more designation than the fact of authority. They’re immediate successor, so Jhonn Young, by the even more nominal title of governor in chief.


United 51 the small colony of Victoria was separated from the parent, colony, his capital, Sydney, was to become more self, contained in more self interested, but this greater concentration of its own affairs was, in the long run, to be beneficial to the city.


Education, which had been sponsored early in the colonies history, was now progressing to the point where elementary schools were not sufficient. Sydney University was created, we can argue, agreeably high degree of talent, to function first in the old building, which is now the Sydney Grammar School, and later in its own building.


Education, which had been sponsored early in the colonies history, was now progressing to the point where elementary schools were not sufficient. Sydney University was created, with an arguable, agreeably high degree of talent, to function first in the old building, which is now the Sydney Grammar School, and later in its own building.


The industrial revolution had reached Sydney, to provide new building, materials, and more important steel, machines that were gradually to replace the old hand craftsmanship. Fitzroy was to see the start of the building of Sydney‘s first team railway, but it was so William Denison who was to take the first triumphant ride to Parramatta in 1855. In the next year, the line was extended to Liverpool, and the middle track slowly began to transact all the countryside to the Southwood in the Westwood.



Saturday, June 10, 2023

“Strathfield” - Strathfield - New South Wales - Demolished

 

“Strathfield” -  Strathfield - New South Wales - Demolished 









Ambleside - Vasileias - Ashfield Castle - Ashfield - New South Wales

Ashfield Castle (Ambleside / Vasileias) – 160 Queen Street – Ashfield – NSW

Victorian Free Gothic “Elizabethan villa” · Begun 1886 for J.B.C. Miles · Standing — private residence after convent/hostel chapters

Ashfield’s fortress-gated pile — built as Ambleside, nicknamed Ashfield Castle, briefly Vasileias under Greek Orthodox hostel use — still stands at 160 Queen Street after a decade-long private restoration. The live post is mostly photographs; this scrapbook puts Ashfield Historical Society facts under them.

At a glance

  • Names: Ambleside (original); popularly Ashfield Castle; institutional Vasileias (Greek Orthodox, homage to St Basil)
  • Address: 160 Queen Street, Ashfield NSW
  • Traditional Custodians: Wangal of the Eora Nation
  • Built: construction 1886; family occupation 1888 (Ashfield & District Historical Society)
  • Client: John Balfour Clement Miles — accountant / property developer; ~11 acres between Queen and Victoria Streets
  • Style: Victorian Free Gothic / grand “Elizabethan Villa” (Ashfield HS)
  • Gates: J.J. Davey designs for wrought-iron gates and masonry entrance, specs 5 Feb 1890 (Ashfield HS)
  • Heritage: listed as Ashfield Castle under former Ashfield LEP 1985 Sch 7; confirm current Inner West LEP ID on publish
  • Fate: Standing — private home (Armenis restoration from 1994)

Site & setting

Queen Street frontage of Miles’s large Ashfield holding; formidable gates and masonry entrance create the “castle” street presence. Music-room bay with figurative stained glass is the interior celebrity. Modern Ashfield surrounds the reduced curtilage — photograph gates and Gothic silhouette carefully.

Timeline

  • 1880 – Miles acquires ~11 acres between Queen and Victoria Streets; builds Holwood then moves to Ambleside on the Queen Street frontage (secondary synthesis — Ashfield HS confirms Ambleside as his third Ashfield home).
  • 1886–1888 – Ambleside constructed and occupied (Ashfield HS).
  • 1890 – J.J. Davey entrance/gates drawings and specifications (Ashfield HS).
  • to 1907 – Miles lives at Ambleside until death (secondary).
  • to 1955 – Remains essentially a family home for successive families (Ashfield HS).
  • 1955 – Our Lady of Snows Convent.
  • 1970 – Greek Orthodox Church; renamed Vasileias; hostel use; unsympathetic alterations (Ashfield HS).
  • 1994 onward – Maria & Louis Armenis purchase; ~ten years’ restoration before moving in; 2018 Ashfield HS members’ inspection with architectural historian Robert Irving (Ashfield HS).

Architecture & interiors

Flamboyant Victorian Free Gothic / Elizabethan villa massing — towers, ornate entrance, leadlight. Music/drawing-room bay: lower lights portray composers Gounod, Weber, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Haydn; upper lights female figures for “fruits of civilization” (Inner West Leadlight). Hostel-era damage reversed in private restoration — prefer owner/HS photography with permission.

People & anecdotes

J.B.C. Miles — accountant who built gentleman’s villas on his Ashfield acres; family link noted in Ashfield HS to Sydney identity Bea Miles (great-niece donation of gate drawings). Maria & Louis Armenis — restorers who reopened the house to HS members in 2018. Robert Irving — architectural commentary on the 2018 tour.

Image gallery guidance

1. Keep live exteriors / gates / stained glass.

2. Ashfield HS tour photography with credit.

3. Davey gate drawings if Society permits reproduction.

4. Respect private-home privacy for unpublished interiors.

What stands today

Ashfield Castle / Ambleside stands as a private residence. No regular public opening — Ashfield & District Historical Society has arranged rare members’ inspections; watch their calendar. Street views of gates and roofline only unless invited.

Sources & further reading

  • Live post (image-led): https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2023/06/ashfield-castle.html
  • Ashfield & District Historical Society — Past Events 2018 (Ambleside inspection): https://ashfieldhistory.org.au/2018-2/
  • Ashfield & District Historical Society — Newsletters 2018 (Davey gate drawings donation)
  • Inner West Leadlight — Queen Street Ambleside inside (composer glass schedule)
  • Former Ashfield LEP 1985 Schedule 7 — 160 Queen Street “Ashfield Castle”
  • Trove — Ambleside Ashfield; Miles Queen Street; Vasileias

Related on this blog

  • Glentworth – Ashfield — search labels (same suburb Italianate / institutional parallel)
  • Other Ashfield Victorian mansions — search labels

Historic live gallery

Images retained from the live Blogger post:

Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Venetia... Vanetta Now Bellevue - 55 Leichardt Street - Glebe - New South Wales

 

Venetia... Vanetta Now Bellevue - 55 Leichardt Street - Glebe - New South Wales



Bellevue, Glebe Point 1899 (G'mpa Warden in photo), [with the house Venetia in the background] ... c.1899 ... W. F. Hall Photo ...
Vanetta is perhaps either a pet name for the house employed by the Warden family, or a mistransliteration or corruption of Venetia [the two storey house, right, in this photograph]. The Warden family rented Bellevue 1898-1903 - Michael Foster (Sept 2005) ...
Previosly titled: "Vanetta" Glebe Point 1899 (G'mpa Warden in photo)
The residence is now known as "Bellevue" and is situated at 55 Leichhardt Street Glebe and is Classified by the National Trust of Australia (NSW).
Venetia was built about 1877 in Kennedy Street (later Leichhardt Street), Glebe for William Jarrett and demolished about 1915. Bellevue, probably a rental property, was built by local architect and builder Ambrose Thornley Junior for Jarrett. It first appears in the Glebe Rate books in 1896, unnamed, and in the Sands Directory in 1897, named Bellevue. It was acquired derelict by Leichhardt Council and was often incorrectly referred to as Venetia, long demolished, in the press and in minutes of the Heritage Council. -- Information supplied by Michael Foster (Sept 2005) ... State Library of New South Wales



No photo description available.
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The Rangers - Mosman - New South Wales

The Rangers – Mosman – NSW

1844 John Frederick Hilly for Oswald Bloxsome · Early Mosman marine mansion · Demolished 1914

Before Rangers Avenue had houses, it had The Rangers — Hilly’s 1844 seat for Oswald Bloxsome, grounds carved down after an 1885 syndicate sale, the house itself knocked down in 1914 despite local protest. The live post already carries the Hughes one-liner; this scrapbook adds Sources and the 1912-vs-1914 soft flag.

At a glance

  • Name: The Rangers (Bloxsome’s English home-name reused; also Rangers Valley in New England)
  • Location: near Spofforth Street, between Rangers Avenue and Brierly Street, Mosman (live / Hughes)
  • Traditional Custodians: Cammeraygal of the Eora Nation
  • Built: 1844 — architect John Frederick Hilly for Oswald Bloxsome (live)
  • Art: dining-room mural by Oswald Brierly — HMS Rattlesnake in a storm (DAAO) — destroyed with house
  • Syndicate sale / partial subdivision: 1885 (live)
  • Fate: Demolished 1914 despite community protests (Lost Mosman correction of Hughes’s “1912”)
  • Source image tradition: B.J. Waterhouse work reproduced in Demolished Houses of Sydney (live credit)

Site & setting

Large early Mosman Bay estate; after 1885 the grounds shrank under residential subdivision while the house lingered until 1914. Street names Rangers Avenue and Brierly Street (Brierly/Brierley spelling varies) freeze the estate memory. Any cellar archaeology under later lots is an open research question raised in recent DA objections — not a confirmed excavation result.

Timeline

  • 1838 – Oswald Bloxsome arrives NSW; New England land selection (Rangers Valley) (DAAO).
  • Early 1840s / 1844 – Sydney home The Rangers built to Hilly’s design (live 1844; DAAO “early 1840s”).
  • Later 1840s – Brierly mural in dining room (DAAO).
  • 1856 – Bloxsomes return to England (DAAO) — later Mosman occupancy chain not fully traced here.
  • 1885 – Syndicate purchase; grounds partially subdivided (live).
  • 1914 – House demolished for further subdivision despite protests (Lost Mosman; soft: older Hughes printings say 1912).

Architecture & interiors

Early Victorian marine mansion by Hilly — detailed room schedule not in the short Hughes paragraph. The lost Brierly mural is the scrapbook’s interior anecdote. Prefer Waterhouse / HHT plate and SLNSW views over invention.

People & anecdotes

Oswald Bloxsome (1802–) — landowner, New England pioneer nickname “Beardy” country associate; named Mosman house after Dursley home. John Frederick Hilly — architect. Oswald Brierly — mural painter (naval subject). Local Mosman community of 1914 — protesters who failed to save the house.

Gallery placeholder note

Do not invent historic photo URLs — keep existing live-post images; captions and sequence guidance below for the merge pass.

1. Keep live Waterhouse / Demolished Houses plate with HHT / estate copyright note.

2. SLNSW / Mosman Local Studies exteriors if held.

3. Estate maps showing Rangers Ave / Brierly Street subdivision.

4. Avoid presenting modern houses as “The Rangers.”

What stands today

Nothing of the mansion. Street pattern and names are the memorial. Pair with other Mosman losses and with standing Mosman houses on this blog (e.g. Boronia).

Sources & further reading

  • Live post: https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-rangers-mosman-new-south-wales.html
  • Joy Hughes (ed.), Demolished Houses of Sydney, Historic Houses Trust of NSW, 1999, p.120
  • Lost Mosman — The Rangers (2014) with 1914 correction: https://lostmosman.com/2014/03/26/house-carrington-avenue-mosman/
  • Design & Art Australia Online — Oswald Bloxsome biography
  • Mosman Local Studies / Historical Society — Rangers Estate research
  • Trove — The Rangers Mosman demolished; Bloxsome; Hilly

Related on this blog

Historic live gallery

Images retained from the live Blogger post:

"Clargo House"- Merton Street - Rozelle - New South Wales

 



"Clargo House" - Merton Street - Rozelle








"Clargo House", which once stood in Merton Street, Rozelle was the home of Mr John Henry Single Mills (of JH Mills & Sons, Boot manufacturer at premises at 286-288 Darling St, Balmain) up to his death in 1893, aged 73 yrs. He left behind a widow and 7 children. His death notice in the Daily Telegraph states that anyone wishing to attend ". . . are kindly invited to attend his Funeral, which will move from his late residence, Clargo House in Merton St Balmain West (now Rozelle) THIS SATURDAY at Noon punctually, for Redfern Station, and thence for 1.30 pm train for interment at Windsor Cemetery . . . "
In 2023, Clargo House no longer exists. It was demolished for a council car park at the back of Rozelle Public School.
Text information from book: Death By Demolition by Helen Carter.