The A to Z of 2205: Athelstane Ave, Arncliffe

One of the fine houses along Wollongong Rd was "Athelstane", built by William George Judd. Judd left school at ageseven, later worked in the brick pits of St Peters and attended school at night. He became an egga nd butter salesmanbeofre opening a produce store. By the late 1870s he had obtained a financial interest in the district's brickworks. he was elected to Rockdale Council in 1882 and served several tems as Mayor. In 1906 he was appointed the first president of Sutherland Shire.

After World War Two, the Department of Education resumed the land that "Athelstane" was on, desite the objections of Judd's son and daughter-in-law who lived there still and did not want to sell. Temporary buildings were erected. Students were transferred from nearby Wilsons Road Public School, which was too small. Athelstane Public School opened on 20 June 1952, and the old house demolished in September 1954. The school operated from a conglomeration of temporary weatherboard (some of which are still there) and aluminium structures until 1973 when a campaign by arents and teachers resulted in a new school being built.

Judd had subdivided his land, which was seven acres, one rood and twenty-four perches and put in Athelsatnd and Horsell Avenues.

Today I go to Athelstane whenever there is an election on in order to vote.

Below: State election March 2007. Athelstane Avenue entrance.
Below: Looking along Athelstane Avenue from Wollongong Rd. The school is on the right. In 1968 Mum and dad considered buying the house on the left, 1 Athelstane Avenue. They bought in Bexley instead.

Below: Interesting gate
Below: I'm always a sucker for jasmine, even though it rambles everywhere and can take over your garden! Here's a nice sunny spot on this fence. The house is California Bungalow style.

Below: Athelstane Avenue is now a dead-end where it meets Hirst St, Fripp St, Lorraine Avenue and John St at the roundabout.
Below: From the dead-end looking towards Wollongong Rd

Below: This beautiful shrub was in the front garden of a house in Athelstane Avenue. I posted it on Sydney Daily Photo and it emerged that it is a Leucospermum from South Africa. To keep an eye on this plant, visit Sydney Daily Photo Extra.

Below: Here is a sub-divided block, where one house is built behind, and there is access along a side easement.


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Photos taken 04 Aug 2008 (and Mar 2007)

Gone But Not Forgotten - Martin St Turrella

I came across this sign down by the railway line at Turrella, (at the end of Rickard St I think). Nice to see an acknowledgement of what went before. It loks like the sign may be a bit forgotten and neglected though! It would be great if there were something in the Almond St Reserve.

A big thanks to all the locals with such vast knowledge who let me know about the history of Almond St (see previous post).

Also, one corrspondent, Vik, has put up a page showing us the BEAUTIFUL exterior and interior of Glenwood in Eden St. <--------Click on the link to go to Vik's page. Coming soon - an update on Dapeto with the work taking place there now, and some new photos in the Wolli Creek/Tempe House area.

The Mystery of Almond St

Here's an attractive little pocket-handkerchief park at the roundabout on the corner of Wollongong Rd and Firth St. But where is Almond St? There is no Almond St in Postcode 2205.

Looks like a job for the local history section of the public library....

Victorian Domestic Architecture: some more modest examples!

Modified Victorian cottages, Wollongong Rd

'Tardis' , Stanley St (bigger inside than it looks on the outside, just like Dr Who's police phone box, I guess!
Victoria St
Old coach house/stables at rear of Victoria St terrace

78 Wollongong Rd

Wollongong Rd
Semis, Stanley St
Semis, Stanley St

71 Hirst St

23 Walters St

16 and 18 Wollongong Rd

16 Mitchell St. A lovely modest weatherboard cottage

9 Dowling St

1 Dowling St

3-4 Mitchell St. Terrace-style semis

Victorian Domestic Architecture: Teluba

It is owned by the NSW Department of Education who use it as a professional services centre/district office. It shares the grounds of Arncliffe Public School.

As late as 1973 it was the Arncliffe Girls Intermediate High School, meaning it was not a full academic high school. Prior to that it was Arncliffe Domestic Science School. In 1974, it amalgamated with Tempe Boys' Junior Technical High to form a comprehensive, co-ed full high school at Tempe.

I remember when that merge too place, as I was at high school and our school donated old books to the newly created school. Some act of noblesse oblige no doubt, but I wonder what the kids at Tempe thought about a library stocked not with new books, but the cast-offs and donations from some snooty nosed kids from a selective school! I hope they've been culled by now!

Victorian Domestic Architecture: Belmont and Fairview, built 1881

Fairview. 197 Wollongong Rd

Belmont: 215 Wollongong Rd

Brothers Thomas and Alexander Milsop were attracted to Australia in 1852 by gold discoveries in Victoria. They failed to make their fortunes there or in New Zealand. They then struck it rich on the Kurrajong goldfield near Forbes in NSW.

The Milsop brothers moved to Wollongong Rd in 1881, purchasing six acres each and erecting two identical houses, Belmont and Fairview. Alexander became the first Mayor of Hurstville.

I don't know anything about their current use, but supect they are either boarding houses, halfway houses or some kind of rehabilitation centres.

Victorian Domestic Architecture: Coburra, built 1905

Built in 1905, a date more usually associated with Federation style architecture, this ornate rendered brick house is more typical of the late Victorian era.

The western NSW town of Cobar comes from an Aboriginal word, Coburra, meaning 'burnt earth', which was used as a body decoration.

Still a private home.

Victorian Domestic Architecture: Myee/Wilga built 1893. Myee Babies' Home

220 Forest Road.

Like Dappeto (next entry), this house played a role in the institutional care of children made wards of the state through the 20th century. Subsequent government enquiries have painted a chequered view of the motivations and legacies of such policies.

Brick and stucco. Built in 1893 by John Horatio Clayton, Mayor of Rockdale from 1895 to 1898. Transition in Victorian architecture from rendered brick to use of face brick. Clayton was a solicitor, and founder of law firm Clayton Utz & Co.

Originally called Myee. I discovered that at one stage Myee was a home for Wards of The State, babies who were in "care" for various reasons, and known as . Myee Babies Home - National Library pictures. This was in the era when it was policy to remove children from their parents for various reasons. Children could be classed as state wards on various grounds including any variation on 'being uncontrollable', 'neglected' or 'in moral danger'. In other words, children were often declared 'uncontrollable', 'neglected' or 'exposed to moral danger' and deemed to be wards of the state, not because they had done anything wrong, but because the circumstances in which they found themselves resulted in them being status offenders and often they were institutionalised. In the case of babies, it was often because the mother was unmarried. Other reasons wer eparents' deaths or divorce, parents unable to care for children, economic stress, social disadvantage, Aboriginality.

In 2004, the Australian Senate Community Affairs Committee published a report called Forgotten Australians: A report on Australians who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children. Included in it was this testimony in Chapter 3 - Why Children Were In Homes:

Single parents (usually mother)

3.40 The Committee received stories from people about how they came to be placed in care because of lack of support for their mothers. This occurred mainly in times when government or other financial support to unmarried mothers was clearly lacking and when being a mother out of marriage carried a stigma, which for many women, would have been too much to endure:

My story begins on 6 September 1932 when I was born to an unmarried 19 year old. My mother had no support from her family, so when I was born at Crown Street Women's Hospital, I stayed there till I was one month old. I was then taken to Myee Children's Home at Arncliffe and made a State Ward...I remained at Myee till I was 18 months old and was then fostered by the Newman family of Campsie. (Sub 179)

Above: Myee Babies' Home, National Library of Australia, 1971

Victorian Domestic Architecture: Dappeto, built 1885. Girls' Home, Retirement Village

171 Wollongong Road, Arncliffe. A very interesting history associated with this building...including playing its part in the institutional care of girls, with the chequered legacy that left...but first:

One of the finest examples of High Victorian architecture. Built 1885 by oyster merchant Frederick Gibbins (1841 - 1917). Constructed of sandstock face bricks mixed with whale oil to protect against dampness. Patterned Welsh slate roof, surmounted by ornate Captain's Walk.

Gibbins made a fortune as an oyster merchant with leases on nearly all the rivers of northern NSW. He built his own ships to transfer the oysters to Sydney where he had his head office and depot. In 1907, Gibbins' daughter, Ada married naturalist David Stead. Gibbins bought another local house, Lydham Hall, for Ada and Stead. Ada was Stead's second wife; he and his first wife, Ellen Butters, who died in 1904, were parents of Christina Stead (b 1902), who became a noted author. Her works included The Seven Poor Men of Sydney, Letty Fox Her Luck, The Man Who Loved Children. Stead lived most of her life outside of Australia, and was probably most known in the USA. (Lydham Hall was bought by Rockdale Council in 1970. They operate it as a museum. Though close by, it is in Postcode 2216 - Rockdale so out of the scope of this blog!)

Stead wrote of her stepmother, Ada Gibbins: " My stepmother did not like me, very natural, as I was the kind of child only a mother could love and then probably with doubts: her treatment of me was dubious. Sometimes servants thought I was my father’s illegitimate child, at other times, they fancied I was an orphan on my stepmother’s side: friends who came to the house took me aside and told me what I owed the kind people who had taken me in." Here's a fascinating piece about Christina Stead.

When Gibbins died in 1917, the property was bought by the Salvation Army.

From 1917 to 1965 they operated it as a girls' home. In 1916 it was called Arncliffe Girls' Industrial Home; in 1930 it became The Nest - Children's Home and between 1941 and 1969 The Nest - Girls Home. (Information from Senate Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care 2004). Part of the land was subdivided and sold.

In 1969 the Salvos turned it into an aged care home and retirement village. One of the conditions imposed by Council ws that the original building had to be restored. It is still serving that function, and is called "Macquarie Lodge".

Information from: A Village Called Arncliffe by R. W. Rathbone, 1997 and http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/13/oct94/brooke.htm

*David George STEAD was born 6 MAR 1877 in Mount Street, North Sydney, NSW, and died 2 AUG 1957 in Watson's Bay, NSW. Son of Christina McLaren and Samuel Stead. He married Ellen "Nellie" BUTTERS 17 AUG 1901 in Sydney, NSW, daughter of Richard Cameron BUTTERS and Mary BOOTE. She was born 1876 in Sofala, NSW, and died 9 DEC 1904in Camperdown, NSW. He married Ada "Tot" GIBBINS 1 JAN 1907 in "Dappeto", Bexley, NSW, daughter of Frederick GIBBINS and Catherine PICKETT. She was born 12 JUL 1878 in Clarence Street, Sydney, NSW, and died 2 JUN 1951 in Mortdale, NSW. He married Thistle Yolette HARRIS 13 JUN 1951 in Bondi, NSW, daughter of Charles Thomas HARRIS and Ilma Richardson ROKES. She was born 29 JUL 1902 in Mosman, NSW, and died 5 JUL 1990 in Summer Hill,NSW.

http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=AHN&db=dwmeale&id=I0692

Victorian Domestic Architecture: Gladstone and Wentworth, 1886

134/36 Forest Rd, Arncliffe

Built in 1886, original builder unknown. Pair of Victorian semis. Rendered brick, cast iron lace featuring angels.