Quirang – Edgecliff – NSW

Quirang – Edgecliff Road / Trelawney Street – Woollahra (Edgecliff fringe) – NSW

Demolished 1966 · Built c.1864 · Name survives on the flat tower at 6 Trelawney Street

Not Quambi. Not Quiraing-with-an-i though the Skye landform is almost certainly why a pastoralist picked the word. Quirang was the big house on the block bounded by Edgecliff Road, Trelawney Street, Fullerton Road (once Oatley Street) and Wellington Street. In 1966 the mansion went; a high-rise kept the name. The live post was a single 1958 photograph. This scrapbook is the Woollahra Libraries card, expanded carefully.

At a glance

• Location: island block — Edgecliff Road, Trelawney Street, Fullerton Road (previously Oatley Street), Wellington Street, Woollahra (eastern-suburbs Edgecliff / Woollahra edge)
• Built: c.1864
• Builder / first associated owner: the Hon. John Duncan MacLean, pastoralist (Woollahra Local History Fast Facts)
• Later occupants (Woollahra Fast Facts): John Fraser; Walter Lamb; the Hon. William Halliday, M.L.C.
• Name: local spelling Quirang; Scottish landform usually Quiraing (Isle of Skye) — treat Quiraing as etymology, Quirang as the Sydney house name
• Fate: Demolished 1966; replaced by the high-rise residential block also called Quirang at 6 Trelawney Street
• Heritage: demolished — no standing mansion listing; photograph and Fast Facts are the public memory trail
• Disambiguation: ≠ Quambi (Albert Street, Edgecliff, demolished 1930s → Quambi Place); ≠ Eynesbury (also Albert / Edgecliff Road world)

Site & setting

Eastern ridge country above Cooper Park / Edgecliff Road — large nineteenth-century villa allotments later sliced by Fullerton, Trelawney and Wellington. The Quirang block was a full street-bounded island: mansion as landmark, then tower as landmark. Aboriginal Country: Cadigal / neighbouring clans of the Eora Nation on the south harbour slopes; always acknowledge before the pastoralist story.

The live blog files Quirang under Edgecliff; Woollahra Councils local history card files the demolished house under Woollahra with those four street boundaries. Both are geographically honest — publish “Woollahra / Edgecliff” and move on.

Timeline

• c.1864 – House built for / by the Hon. John Duncan MacLean, pastoralist (Woollahra Fast Facts).
• Later 19th–early 20th c. – Occupied in turn by John Fraser, Walter Lamb, and the Hon. William Halliday, M.L.C. (same Fast Facts card — deepen via Sands / Trove before adding dates).
• 1958 – Photographed by Ian Scott (Woollahra Libraries Digital Archive pf002215) — the image on the live post.
• 1966 – Mansion demolished; high-rise Quirang rises at 6 Trelawney Street, keeping the name.
• Today – Tower occupies the memory; mansion survives in the archive photo and subdivision / rate trails still to be mined.

Architecture & interiors

No SHR fabric description — the house is gone. The 1958 Scott photograph (live post / Woollahra archive) is the primary visual: use it, credit it, and resist inventing verandah orders or room counts from memory of other Edgecliff villas. Further architectural character should come from Trove sale notices, Our Beautiful Homes-type books, or Woollahra Libraries research files — not guesswork.

People & anecdotes

John Duncan MacLean — pastoralist, “Hon.” in the Woollahra card — plants a Scottish toponym on a Sydney ridge. Quiraing on Skye is the famous landslip amphitheatre; nineteenth-century colonists loved a Highland name on a harbour view. Spell the house Quirang as locals did; mention Quiraing once so searchers forgive the vowels.

Fraser, Lamb, Halliday — names on the Fast Facts card only in this pass. Halliday as M.L.C. is the political hook; chase Trove obituaries and Sands before writing dinner-party fiction.

Do not merge this household with Quambi’s Stephen / Darley story — different street, different decades of demolition, different aftermath (tower vs Quambi Place cottages).

Image gallery guidance

1. Ian Scott, Quirang, Woollahra, 1958 (pf002215) — already on live post Search: Woollahra Libraries Digital Archive. Caption idea: Eight years from the wreckers — Quirang in 1958 (Ian Scott).

2. Site / street map of the four-street block Search: Woollahra subdivision plans; Six Maps historical. Caption idea: Edgecliff Rd, Trelawney, Fullerton, Wellington — the Quirang island.

3. 6 Trelawney Street tower (name survivor) Search: contemporary street photography. Caption idea: The name stuck — Quirang flats on the mansion’s ground.

4. Trove sale / social notices Search: “Quirang” + Woollahra / Edgecliff / Trelawney. Caption idea: When Quirang still hosted — newspaper crumbs.

5. Compare set: Quambi (Albert St) and Eynesbury Search: this blog’s sister drafts; Woollahra Fast Facts Q / C. Caption idea: Three names, three fates — don’t mix the Edgecliff card index.

What stands today

The mansion does not stand. The Quirang apartment building at 6 Trelawney Street, Woollahra keeps the name on the same block. No house-museum visit — only archive, street walk, and the 1958 photograph.

What you can do:

• Walk the Trelawney / Edgecliff Road / Wellington perimeter and imagine the vanished curtilage.
• Use Woollahra Libraries Digital Archive (pf002215 and related files).
• Cross-check the Quambi and Eynesbury posts so readers never confuse the three.

Sources & further reading

• Woollahra Municipal Council — Local history fast facts – Q (Quirang / Quambi entries): https://www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au/Library/Local-history/Local-history-fast-facts/q
• Woollahra Libraries Digital Archive — Ian Scott, Quirang, 1958, pf002215
• Live scrapbook: https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2026/07/quirang-edgecliff-new-south-wales.html
• Trove — “Quirang Woollahra / Edgecliff / Halliday / MacLean
• Sands Directories — Trelawney / Edgecliff Road entries
• Etymology only: Quiraing, Isle of Skye (standard references) — not a Sydney primary source

Research gaps: Full owner dates, architect, and room descriptions not secured from ADB / Dictionary of Sydney / Heritage NSW in this pass — Woollahra Fast Facts is the spine; enrich from Libraries research file before asserting more.

Related on this blog

• Quambi – Albert Street – Edgecliff (different house)
• Eyensbury / Eynesbury – Edgecliff
• Fenton – 8 Albert Street – Edgecliff (search Fenton)
• Other Edgecliff Road villas (Fiona / Ascham precinct, etc.)

Add historic photos with captions and credits (SLNSW / Trove / author) from Image gallery guidance.

Merioola- Edgecliff Road Woollahra - NSW

Merioola – Edgecliff Road – Woollahra – NSW

Victorian mansion · Built 1859 · Demolished 1955 (DoS) — not 1916

On the Edgecliff Road ridge, Merioola was a Victorian house that lived two lives: eighty years of fashionable private occupancy and entertainment, then a postwar boarding house that briefly became the most talked-about artists’ colony in Sydney. The live post ends the story in 1916. The Dictionary of Sydney and Woollahra’s local history put the wreckers in the mid-1950s — after Donald Friend had already diarised its “rooms and passages and west wings and surprising hidden courtyards.”

At a glance

• Address / site: Edgecliff Road, Woollahra — stood on the south side of present Rosemont Avenue (Woollahra Municipal Council fast facts)
• Built: 1859
• Builder / first owner: John Edye Manning
• Later private associations: Adhur (Arthur) Allen, popularly “prince of entertainers” (Woollahra)
• Mid-20th c.: boarding house managed from 1941 by Chica Edgeworth Lowe; home of the Merioola Group (also tagged “Sydney Charm School”)
• Fate: Demolished — Dictionary of Sydney milestone 1955 (prefer over live “1916”; soft secondary art texts c.1951)

Site & setting

Merioola faced Edgecliff Road in Woollahra, on the rise now cut by Rosemont Avenue. The Aboriginal Country is that of the Gadigal / eastern harbour peoples; European Woollahra here was late-Victorian villa country on the road between the city and the eastern beaches.

By the 1940s the house read as a colonial mansion broken into rooms, passages, west wings and courtyards — Friend’s diary phrase, quoted in later Merioola scholarship — with enough space for painters, dancers, designers and writers to share kitchens and ceremonies.

Timeline

• 1859 – House built for John Edye Manning (DoS; Woollahra; live post).
• Later 19th / early 20th c. – Private occupancy and entertainment era; Woollahra notes purchase by Adhur Allen, “prince of entertainers.”
• 1941 – Leased / run as boarding house by Chica Edgeworth Lowe, who actively sought creative tenants (Merioola Group histories).
• 1945–c.1950 – Peak of the Merioola Group; group exhibitions 1947 (Myer Gallery, Melbourne; David Jones, Sydney).
• c.1951–1955 – House demolished — DoS: 1955; some secondary art histories say 1951 — do not invent a day; never use live “1916.”

Architecture & interiors

Victorian mansion fabric as remembered by tenants: multi-wing plan, courtyards, boarding-house subdivisions. No intact standing house to survey. Treat Friend’s 1946 diary and Alec Murray’s group photographs as the best interior/atmosphere evidence; seek Woollahra Libraries Digital Archive for pre-demolition elevations.

People & anecdotes

John Edye Manning — merchant family; also associated later with Willandra, Ryde (Caroline Manning / John Edye Manning of a later generation — disambiguate on that post).

Chica Edgeworth Lowe (Mary Patricia Edgeworth Somers / Boileau / Lowe) — landlady who filled Merioola “from the attic to the cucumber frame” with artists and theatre people.

Merioola Group — among residents and circle: Donald Friend, Justin O’Brien, Loudon Sainthill, Harry Tatlock Miller, Jocelyn Rickards, sculptor Arthur Fleischmann, photographer Alec Murray, and European-trained arrivals including Roland Strasser, Peter Kaiser, Michael Kmit. Robert Hughes later labelled related work the “Charm School.”

What stands today

Nothing of the mansion stands. The footprint is under later Woollahra fabric south of Rosemont Avenue / Edgecliff Road. The name survives in art history as the Merioola Group.

Sources & further reading

• Dictionary of Sydney — Merioola: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/building/merioola (constructed 1859; demolished 1955)
• Woollahra Municipal Council — Local history fast facts M (Merioola): https://www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au/Library/Local-history/Local-history-fast-facts/M
• Wikipedia — Merioola Group (boarding house from 1941; Chica Lowe)
• National Portrait Gallery — Alec Murray, The Merioola Group
• Edith M. Ziegler, Merioola: The Story of a Fabled Sydney House (Arcadia / Australian Scholarly, announced 2025) — secondary; cite after checking

Related on this blog

• Willandra – Ryde (Manning family link — different generation / house)
• Other Woollahra / Edgecliff demolished villas (Quambi, Quirang, Eyensbury as published)
• Artist-house stories where tagged

Historic live gallery

Images retained from the live Blogger post:

Transcription (The Sun, Monday 4 February 1952, page 2 (date and page from the image file name))

Demolition of
old mansion

Workmen have started to demolish one of Sydney's oldest mansions, Merioola, Edgecliff Rd. and Rosemont Av., Edgecliff.

Demolition is expected to take six months.

Merioola was built in 1859 by John Edye Manning, and has 35 rooms, including a ballroom with domed roof. Edward, Prince of Wales, danced in this ballroom when the house was owned by Mr. Arthur Allen.

Transcription (The Daily Telegraph, Friday 1 February 1952, page 9 (date and page from the image file name))

Mansion to be wrecked
Demolition of one of Sydney's oldest mansions will begin next Monday.

The mansion is Merioola, at the corner of Edgecliff Road and Rosemont Avenue, Edgecliff.

Merioola is 93 years old.

It was sold about a year ago to a firm of demolishers.

A spokesman for the demolishers—Nadin and Bull, Ltd.—said last night that demolition would take three to six months.

Mr. John Edye Manning was the original owner of Merioola, which was built in 1859.

It has 35 rooms, including a ballroom with domed roof.

Most of its cedar fittings were sold at auction this week.

Heavy cedar doors sold for up to £10 each.

The auctioneer, Mr. C. G. Waintwright, of San Souci, said yesterday that the sale was probably Sydney's biggest auction of selected cedar since 1930.

Mr. Wainwright said a carved cedar staircase, built to three floors, was not sold because bidding was short of the reserve.

Bidding for solid cedar columns on the front porch and upstairs balcony was also below the reserve.

Mr. Wainwright said he understood two or three homes and a block of flats would be built on the Merioola site.