Houses Of Colonial Sydney
NEW BOOKS REVIEWED - -
- - Conducted by Clive Turnbull
Houses of Colonial Sydney
SOME HOUSES & PEOPLE OF NEW SOUTH WALES, by G. Nesta Griffiths (Sydney: Urc Smith)
The shelves in an Australian library which ought to be labelled Memoirs & Social History are mostly blank. Only in recent years has there been any attempt to tell us about the people, apart from governors & politicians, who made the Australia we live in.
SOME Houses & People of New South Wales?" very entertaining, one of the gaps. It Is Australia's story, with a small "s" certainly, disregarding most of the economic background, but it does provide a vast amount of information about the people who built Sydney's best known houses, from the days of the Macarthurs onward, & it's illustrated with a valuable series of photographs of dwellings as they used to be & are now. Written with knowledge, & sympathy, this Is an amiable round-up by an author to whom the ramifications of the Sydney families are an open book, in terms which all of them would certainly approve.
There's nothing discreditable about anyone's great-grandfather. To readers who know the houses & the descendants of the people described the book will obviously have a special appeal. Others may regard It as the groundwork for an historical study — Miss Griffiths supplies the facts: you may supply your own interpretation.
The houses photographed Illustrate the decline in taste which we should expect. The simple forms of the Georgian colonists gave place to the sometimes grotesoue ostentation of the later Victorian ace. One's fear that some of the more charming houses may be pulled down is balanced by a hope that some of the others will. Notable & gracious houses here shewn include Camden Park, Elizabeth Bay House a groundless survivor amid architectural parvenus. Tusculum, Glenrock & Fassy. There are some harmless equivalents of Toorak Renals. The' horrible examples one forbears to mention: they are plain to see.
Of all these dwellings' ElizabethBay Bay House is probably the most familiar as in its latter-day status as a rooming house, it has harbored many birds of passage. As Miss Griffiths points out there are probably hundreds of people in Sydney today to whom the name Macleay means a street on Pott's Point, though there are still a few who can remember Elizabeth Bay House before it was shorn of its glories.
Alexander Macleay was appointed Colonial Secretary in the twenties of last, century, & was later granted 54 acres at Elizabeth Bay. "a mile & a half from Sydney," for the purpose of erecting a family house & cultivating a garden — he had been secretary of the Lutheran Society. The house was completed in the 1830's, & the garden included all or what is now known as Elizabeth Bay to the western frontage of Rushcutter's Bay. Even in the forties it had become "one of the most perfect places I ever saw in my life." according to a visitor — the house "like a nobleman's palace." Macleay planted flowers & trees from "every climate, from Rio to the West, & East Tndies. China, & even England." from the Cape & from New Zealand. Both Macleay & the son who succeeded him were great patrons of learning &, indeed, everything agreeable, & entertained everyone of consequence from John Gould, of bird celebrity, to T. H. Huxley.
The celebrated staircase at Elizabeth Bay House, Sydney, now a forlorn reminder of colonial grandeur in a suburb of lowering pais.
In 1915 the garden was greatly reduced. This century the house was occupied by various families, & In 1927 the estate was cut up & sold, the house for £14.000. the land for £150 a foot, a total of £57.509. "As the high ltde of progress Inps around what remains of this beautiful house." says Miss Griffiths, "It stands a pathetic relic surrounded by great blocks of flats. The gracious bow windows with their slightly curved/glass still 'retain a few original panes. The lovely panelling, the door frames, & those immense & capacious cellars remain to give some idea of Its past magnificence. but the glory of the garden Is only a memory. "In the hall at the old house the beautiful cantilever staircase soars upward in a gradual curve like the flower of an arum lily." Sydney has not been kind to these charming old houses. Burdekin House, Macquarle Street completed In 1811 for Thomas Burdekin — the river is named after his son — was demolished "in the cause of progress in the carlv nineteen-thirties." Of another estate we read "the lovely park overlooking the Parramatta River, bounded by the Duck River & Hacking's Creek Is now bordered- by the Homebush Abattoirs & Carnarvon Golf Links." It was nice while it lasted.
C.T.
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