| Historical notes: | Wahroonga is Aboriginal land:
The meaning of 'Wahroonga' - an Aboriginal word - is 'our home'.
Material in rock shelters reveals that Aboriginal people inhabited the surrounding region at least from the last ice age some 20,000 years ago. Several different languages and dialects were spoken in the Sydney Harbour area before the arrival of the First Fleet. 'Kuringgai' was the language spoken on the north shores (DEST & DUAP, 1996, 42, 135, 138). When Europeans chose the south side of the harbour for the settlement of the First Fleet in 1788, they chose the territory of the Darug-speaking people, who inhabited the region from the southern shores of Sydney Harbour west to the Blue Mountains. Both the Darug and the Kuringgai groups suffered catastrophic loss of life in the smallpox epidemic that swept through the indigenous population in 1789, with a death rate estimated to have been between 50 per cent and 90 per cent. Over the following century there were numerous documentary recordings of the movements of surviving Kuringgai people within the Ku-Ring-Gai locality, both attending Aboriginal gatherings and collecting European rations such as blankets. There are also several oral history accounts of small clans travelling through the district in the late nineteenth century. In the 1950s at least a few local Aboriginal people were known to be still living within their traditional territory (Ku-Ring-Gai Historical Society, 1996, 12-13).
Early Europeans in the district
Before the railway (constructed late nineteenth century) and later the Sydney Harbour Bridge (opened 1932) made the north shore easily accessible, the Kur-Ring-Gai area was remote from Sydney Town and consisted mainly of isolated white rural communities earning their livelihood from agricultural activities such as timber-getting and market gardening. Wahroonga first experienced suburban development after the railway line from Hornsby to St Leonards was opened in 1890, when the first suburban roads were constructed followed by the first homes, built around 1896. The Shire of Ku-Ring-Gai was first constituted in 1906 with just six councillors, who took temporary offices in the grounds of St John's Church at Gordon (ibid, 1996, 12-18).
George Caley (1770-1829), a botanist sent to the colony in 1795 by Sir Joseph Banks from London to collect flora specimens for Kew Gardens, was one of the first white men to explore this bushland area. In 1805 he walked along a cattle path on the ridge towards Fox Valley, near the 640 acres that were later granted to Thomas Hyndes by Governor Darling (1825-31). The north-western part of the grant, known later as Pearce's Corner extended past the present Sydney Adventist Hospital (today this area marks the boundary of three suburbs: Normanhurst, Waitara and Wahroonga) - and honours an early settler whose name was Aaron Pierce. He arrived with his wife in 1811, received a conditional pardon and worked as a timber cutter along the ridge from Kissing Point to the present Pacific Highway (formerly Lane Cove Road). Three tracks converged at this point and Pierce built a hut to house his family and set out an orchard. He was said to reside there by 1831, and the corner was then known as Pierce's Corner). A village developed on the opposite corner (Pearce's Corner Township, later renamed Normanhurst)) around St. Paul's Church (which today is in Wahroonga).
On Hyndes' death the grant was bought by John Brown and became known as Brown's Paddock. When he died in 1881, it was resurveyed and the larger portion became Fox Ground Estate, purchased by a Francis Gerard (Pollen, 1988, 260-2).
Before the railway (late nineteenth century) and later the Sydney Harbour Bridge (1932) made the north shore easily accessible, the Ku-Ring-Gai area was remote from Sydney Town and consisted mainly of isolated white rural communities earning their livelihood from agricultural activities such as timber-getting and market gardening (ibid, 1996, 12-18).
The harbour barrier delayed suburbanisation of the district and in the early 1880s the tiny settlement was judged too small to warrant a railway line. Access to Milsons Point remained difficult although a coach service plied that route from 1881 to 1887. By 1885 it was also possible to travel to Sydney via the 5 bridges road crossing the water at Fig Tree, Gladesville, Iron Cove, Glebe Island and Pyrmont (AHC - indicative place listing - Mahratta Avenue Urban Conservation Area).
Railway and tramway plans for the area were discussed by the authorities in the 1880s (Scobie, 2008, 9). The single-track North Shore railway line that went from Hornsby to St Leonards in 1890 finally reached Milsons Point in 1893. The North Shore Ferry Company had been carrying passengers from Milsons Point to Circular Quay since the 1860s and by the 1890s around 5 million people crossed the harbour by this means every year. Offering suburban subdivisions along the railway line in advance of the stations, speculators developed Ku-ring-gai well before completion of the North Shore Bridge in 1932 set off another flurry of real estate promotion. Ku-ring-gai grew slowly in the 19th century, its population being 4,000 by 1901. However, over the next two decades its population quadrupled. By this time, with its large residences in beautiful, leafy surrounds, it had changed from a district with a dubious reputation to one that attracted people of high socio-economic status, 73 per cent of whom were home owners.
When the railway line came through the North Shore from St. Leonards to Hornsby, a station opened in this area on 1/1/1890 and was called Pearce's Corner. The construction name had been Noonan's Platform because the property belonging to Patrick Noonan came within the new railway's boundary. The name was changed to Wahroonga on 30/8/1890 (AHC - indicative place listing - Mahratta Avenue Urban Conservation Area). The section between Hornsby and St. Leonards was built by E.Pritchard & Co. contractor (Scobie, 2008, 9).
Wahroonga first experienced suburban development after the railway line from Hornsby to St Leonards opened in 1890, when the first suburban roads were constructed followed by the first homes, around 1896. The Shire of Ku-Ring-Gai was first constituted in 1906 with six councillors, who took temporary offices in the grounds of St John's Church at Gordon (ibid, 1996). The post office opened on 15/10/1896. In 1898 Abbotsleigh School for girls moved to Wahroonga. In 1899 when only 3 houses stood in Fox Valley Road, Wahroonga, the Seventh-Day Adventists purchased land there and erected a large building by 1903. This evolved into 'The San' or Sanitarium hospital (Pollen, 1988, 260-2).
During the interwar years of 1921 to 1933, the population increased by 45 per cent from 19,209 to 27,931 with a 68 per cent rise in the number of occupied dwellings, the proportion of brick to weatherboard being 5:1. The same sort of increase occurred from 1933 to 1947 when a further 43 per cent of people moved into the district bringing the total population to 39,874 and adding 3,564 houses. Even greater restriction on the use of timber and fibro occurred in this period so that 3,182 of these were brick. Clearly, Ku-ring-gai suffered less in the 1930s depression than other municipalities where development was much slower. Its people also encountered less unemployment - only slightly behind Vaucluse with 16 per cent unemployed, Ku-ring-gai and Mosman registered 18 per cent unemployed in 1933 - although the proportion of owner occupation did fall to 68 per cent (AHC - indicative place listing - Mahratta Avenue Urban Conservation Area).
Thomas Hyndes grant and John Brown's paddock: the Fox Ground Estate:
Governor Darling made a 640 acre (259ha) 1838 grant to emancipated convict, Thomas Hyndes. Hyndes had been in possession of the land since 1830, working it with convict labour and supplying timber to the colony. In 1840 he sold the land and in 1854 it was again sold, to John Brown, timber merchant. Brown bought it to cut as much timber off the land as possible (Ratliffe, 1990, 95-6).
The 8.5acre property of the Bank of NSW was part of John Brown's 640 acres which he purchased from the first pioneer of the district, Thomas Hyndes. This land extended from Pearce's Corner, Wahroonga, fronting Lane Cove Road to a short distance beyond its junction with Fox Valley Road and extending to the boundary of the Lane Cove River. Brown aspired to own a squire mile of land. This was a magnificent forest area then. Brown cleared land for an orchard and felling forest trees for timber. His expanding interests led to the name 'The Squire'. The names of Brown's sons and daughters have been perpetuated in the names of Lucinda, Ada and Roland Avenues, Wahroonga, in the vicinity.
No real subdivision was effected until 1893, when Francis Gerard purchased 'The Foxground Estate' from John Brown. This land at the corner of Fox Valley Road and Lane Cove Road (Pacific Highway), Wahroonga was known as 'Brown's Paddock' (Thorne, 1968, 53-7).
After Brown died it took about 11 years for the resolution of his estate's administration to be finalised, but in the meantime 3 parcels of what had been his land were sold off by estate trustees. The second sale took place on 30 January 1893 when pastoralists' agent Francis Gerard purchased 6 acres (2.43 hectares) at the intersection of The Lane Cove Road (Pacific Highway) and Government Road (Fox Valley Road).3 However, he did not keep the land for very long, for the following April it was sold to Michael Campbell Langtree and his wife Adelaide.4 Gerard made a handsome and quick profit, having paid (Pounds)7.50 for the land and receiving (Pounds)9.00 in return.' (Taylor Brammer et al, 2011, 9).
Michael Langtree, who was born in Victoria, was described as a civil engineer and pastoralist. Adelaide Langtree was born in Forbes. They were married in March 1881 at Warrendine.' During the 1880s the couple was living on the Florida Station near Cobar" and by 1890 Michael Langtree was a partner in the firm of Rothwell and Langtree, railway contractors, which owned a sawmill located outside Rockhampton.' At the time the couple purchased the land from Francis Gerard they were living at Hunter's Hill' (ibid, 2011, 9).
The Langtrees built a house on the northern side of the property, which was given the name Yaamba. It may have been completed as early as 1895 but was certainly standing by 1897. The location of the house to one side of the property suggests that future subdivision was a consideration. However, they did not live there for long, and by 1900 Yaamba was home to tenants, B Leslie and family." Two years later the land was subdivided and Yaamba was offered for sale by
auction on 11 September 1902, on account of the Langtrees having to leave Sydney. The house was described as a
"well appointed and finished Family Residence ...substantially constructed of brick on stone foundation, tiled roof, with verandahs and balconies, and contains hall, drawing-room, dining-room, study, 5 bedrooms, dressing-room, schoolroom, bathroom, servants' hall, 2 pantries, lavatory, servants' room, and laundry ... At the rear, and built of brick with iron roof, are Stables with one stall, coachhouse, man's room, loft, feedroom, workshop, &c ...
The grounds, comprising an area in all of six acres, have been tastefully laid out as flower and vegetable garden and orchard, asphalt tennis court ...The house presents an attractive appearance, and has been artistically decorated internally and externally.""
The title to the larger allotment, bounded by Lane Cove Road and what was then termed Parish Road (now Fox Valley Road), was conveyed by the Langtrees to Miss Constance Maria Elizabeth Beckx on 18 September 1902. The land contained 4 acres (1.62 hectares)." On 29 October 1902 the smaller allotment to the north, which included Yaamba, came into the possession of William Milford Alderson." Around the following May both allotments were brought under the provisions of the Real Property Act." by 1903 (ibid, 2011, 11-12).
The term 'villa' was first used in England in the 17th century, partly from the Latin and Italian 'country house, farm', perhaps derived from the stem of vicus (village). The villa was a country mansion or residence, together with a farm, farm-buildings, or other house attached, built or occupied by a person of some position and wealth. It was taken to include a country seat or estate and later a residence in the country or in the neighbourhood of a town, usually standing in its own grounds. From this is was appropriated by the middleof the 18th century to mean a residence of a superior type, in the suburbs of a town or in a residential district, such as that occupied by a person of the middle class, and also a small, better-class dwelling house, usually detached or semi-detached. The term 'villa garden' was used in the context of Hobart and Sydney residences in the 1830s, and if near the coast or harbour, the appellation 'marine villa' was often applied. Australian origins probably date from the grant conditions applied to Sydney's Woolloomooloo Hill (1827, under Governor Darling), which obligated the construction of villas fulfilling certain conditions... 'with garden like domain, and external offices for stables and domestic economy' (John Buonarotti Papworth, 1825, quoted in James Broadbent's 1997 book, 'The Australian Colonial House'). Many gardens of 19th century villas followed Gardenesque conventions, with garden ornaments often complementing the architecture of the house. The term had acquired such widespread usage by the 1850s that when Jane Loudon issued a new editiion of her husband (John Claudius Loudon)'s 'Suburban Gardener and Villa Companion' (1838) she merely entitled the revised work 'The Villa Gardener' (1850). This coincided with a growing period of suburbanisation in Australia with consequent fostering of the nursery trade... By the 1880s, descriptions of Australian villas implied sufficient room for a lawn on two or three fronts of the residence...(Aitken, 2002, 619-20).
Mahratta:
Constance Maria Elizabeth Beckx (died 1936) had been secretary of the Melbourne District Nursing Association for a number of years until resigning in 1897." She subsequently moved to Sydney and after acquiring the land at Warrawee (Harvey, 2013, 99 note that she bought a four acre lot on the corner of Fox Valley Road and the Lane Cove Road in 1903) commissioned the prominent architectural firm of Robertson & Marks to design a house for her. It was completed by 1904 and given the name Heverlee." The house was evidently well-appointed and conformed to the latest architectural fashions, being "substantially constructed of brick, tuck pointed, stone facings, and stone foundations, tiled roof, and contains Mosaic tiled verandah, tiled entrance hall, tiled lounge vestibute hall - with handsome blackwood staircase - 3 large reception rooms - with artistically carved blackwood doors, blackwood and rosewood floors and fittings - 3 corresponding bedrooms, 2 dressing rooms, 3 other bedrooms, tiled bathroom, hot water service, large linen press, silver and china closets, tiled kitchen, servants' hall, and staircase, bathroom, housemaid's pantry, dairy, laundry, and dry properly equipped cellar, etc...The grounds, which comprise an area of four acres, have been planted with choice trees, shrubs, flowers, etc., now well grown, bearing orchard, vine walk, kitchen garden and English grass paddock... Commodious brick stabling with all modern convenience (source: Sands Sydney and suburban directory, 1904 edition. Heverlee is a town in Belgium and was possibly where Constance Beckx' family originated)(ibid, 2011, 10). Harvey, 2013, 101 note Beckx's Heverlee had 18 rooms, kitchen and out-offices, with a tiled roof).
However, Constance Beckx only occupied Heverlee for about two years, after which the house was tenanted by Jarnes Kidd and his family." During the second half of 1907 Miss Beckx entrusted her affairs to William Rankin and moved to Florence in Italy. Heverlee was then offered for sale by auction in April 1909 and purchased by grazier Frederick Albert Moses (1863-1942) of Wahroonga (Harvey, 2013, 101), who in turn mortgaged the property to Miss Beckx. Frederick Moses and his brother William owned large properties near Moree on which they ran sheep and horses." (ibid, 2011, 11).
Frederick Moses and his family occupied the house for about three years before selling it to Gerald Francis Allen for about (Pounds)80.00 in August 1912. Gerald Allen was a son of Samuel Allen, who founded the firm of Samuel Allen & Sons Ltd in 1872. The company was wide-ranging in its activities - it was a wine merchant, produce and general merchant and shipping and forwarding agency, and had offices in Queensland, Sydney and Melbourne. Gerald rose to become managing director of the company (ibid, 2011, 12).
Around the same time that he bought Heverlee, Allen also purchased 2 allotments to the west of the property. These are understood to have been Lots 29 and 30 of the Brown's Estate subdivision of 1896 and were purchased from members of the Brown family. He also purchased two allotments fronting Ada Avenue, to the west of Heverlee (Lots 23 and 24 of the Brown's Estate subdivision)(ibid, 2011, 12). This amounted to an additional 8.5 acres of land (Harvey, 2013, 101).
Allen set about improving the property. He "purchased an additional 9 acres [3.64 hectares], and spent thousands in beautifying the grounds, as well as over (Pounds)120.00 in the erection of garages, a head gardener's home, and other structural improvements. At the present time it is one of the most beautiful mansions in that locality ."(ibid, 2011, 12).
Gerald Allen renamed it 'Mahratta' after a Bombala sheep station where his grandfather was overseer (Thorne, 1968, 53-7, 143-4; GCoA, 2016, 18). The name Mahratta comes from two Indian words: Maha Ratcha meaning 'The Great Kingdom' in sanskrit (GCoA, 2016, 18).
The Great Mahratta Confederacy was an area north and west of Hyderabad, in Southern-Central India, comprised of Hindu chiefs who raised sepoy armies, trained by Francophile mercenaries and renegades. Its leader, Mahadji Scindia held his court in Pune, c1800 (Dalrymple, 2002, 44, 55, 103).
Under the direction of architect Arthur Palin, Allen made extensions and upgraded the substantial Federation home. The mansion was noted for its cedar staircase and copper ceiling in the billiard room (http://mahratta.org.au/Mahratta/about-mahratta.html).
Allen commissioned garden designer Paul Sorensen in 1925 to lay out its then 8 hectare (now 1.6ha) garden (i.e. Heverlee's pre-existing garden). Sorensen's design created two levels divided by a (retained, from Heverlee) graceful stone balustrade wall with steps leading from the upper level down to a sunken rose garden, croquet court and extensive lawns. Exotic trees were planted including cedars (Cedrus deodara/Himalayan cedar and weeping blue Atlas cedar, C.atlantica 'Pendula'), other conifers, maples (Acer spp.) and oaks (Quercus spp.), many coming from Sorensen's nursery in Leura. Other trees thought to have been planted at this time include the Queensland firewheel tree (Stenocarpus sinuatus), crows foot ash (Flindersia australis), Bunya Bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii) and tallowwood (Eucalyptus microcorys). All have matured to become magnificent trees (GCoA, 2016, 18)
Allen sold Mahratta in May 1930 to Sir James Joynton Smith who was a member of the Legislative Council, Lord Mayor of Sydney and owner of the Carrington Hotel in Katoomba (http://mahratta.org.au/Mahratta/about-mahratta.html).
Sir James Joynton Smith (1858-1943) made his fortune after leasing and successfully managing the Arcadia Hotel in Pitt
Street, Sydney, from 1896. He went on to acquire other hotels, notably the Carlton in Sydney, the Bondi Astra and the Carrington in Katoomba - Smith was for a long time the dominant investor in the Blue Mountains. He made money from sport and was chairman of the Australian Trotting and Victoria Park Racing clubs. He was President of the New South Wales Rugby League between 1910 and 1928, and its patron between 1929 and 1943. Smith also achieved success in politics, being an alderman and mayor in the Sydney Municipal Council between 1916 and 1918 and an inactive Member of the Legislative Assembly between 1912 and 1934. In 1919 he commenced publishing the popular newspaper Smith's Weekly and the following year was knighted (not necessarily because of Smith's Weekly). Mahratta was not his only residential property; he had acquired the substantial Hastings at Coogee in 1907, which is where he died."(ibid, 2011, 13).
After Smith had acquired Mahratta the title was transferred to Warrawee Equities and Estates Ltd in January 1932 (ibid, 2011, 13). Hankins and Agnew sold the house, sited on 12 acres, on 22 June 1939, reportedly for less than 30,000 pounds. The Australian Mutual Provident Society as mortgagee exercising power of sale transferred the property to Garagabal Pastoral P/L (Harvey, 2013, 99). The AMP, as mortgagee," subsequently sold it to Caragabal Pastoral Company August 1939." The company's "governing" director was a man by the name of T A Field' (ibid, 2011, 13).
Thomas Alfred Field was born in Kent in 1874. The family migrated to Sydney in 1885 (McKeesick, 2018, 72, says the date of their arrival was 1888). Thomas left school to work in his father's retail and wholesale butchering business (a string of slaughterhouses and butcher shops: McKeesick, 2018, 72), which he and his brother inherited in 1900. They began acquiring pastoral properties and developed the company's wholesale and export trade. T A Field Ltd, which exported frozen meat, was established in 1923 and by 1931 had pastoral interests extending across eastern Australia (McKeesick, 2018, 72 notes it was so successful that it experienced problems sourcing quality animals, and in 1906 T.A.Field Estates was established to acquire property and breed beef. She adds that by the 1970s, the firm operated the biggest butchery in Queensland). In 1934 the Field brothers divided assets and set up their own pastoral companies. Field has been described as "[h]ard working and confident, he was solidly built and had a forthright gaze. With a cigar in hand, he displayed success, and was respected by his employees. He was also a thinker, with a good memory and firm ideas about the industry. In a company memo he wrote that 'the key to successful business is careful finance'. Field's frequent rounds of his properties kept him away from his family for many weeks. He was one of the first pastoralists to own his own aeroplane. "(ibid, 2011, 13).
In 1933 Thomas Field suffered a severe heart attack. The following year he visited Europe and on returning to Australia largely withdrew from business. He died on 29 January 1944, less than five years after purchasing Mahratta."(ibid, 2011, 13).
However, in that time he initiated substantial changes to the property. Constance Beckx' fine Federation era house was demolished in 1940 and a large two storey house, reputedly designed by architect Douglas Agnew, was built the following year."(ibid, 2011, 14). The applicant to Council to construct the house was NR Smith (Norman Rigg Smith, builder) and the estimated cost to build it was 21,000 pounds (Harvey, 2013, 99). The house incorporated Georgian Revival and Art Deco features and included an extensive suite of formal living spaces and staff areas on the ground floor and bedrooms and sun decks on the first floor. Other features of the site, which were probably initiated by Gerald Allen, such as the garage and chauffeur's quarters, tennis court, croquet lawn, sunken rose garden and sunken garden on the northern side of the property, were retained. The major landscape element initiated by Field was the partially-enclosed Pompeian Court on the northern side of the house." A shed on the eastern side of the sunken garden was removed, presumably to enable construction of the moon gate on the northern side of the Pompeian Court (ibid, 2011, 14).
Mahratta was distinguished by a consistent if not relentless use of curves and circles within the planning and detailing of the house which included (but was not limited to) curved corners in major rooms, the elliptical dining room, the curved main stair, detailed planning and arches in bathrooms, round arched windows, circular glazed panels in the doors to the dining room and ballroom, circular windows, circular motifs in the detailing of glazed doors and highlights, rosettes in ceilings, quadrant-shaped corners and circular elements in the layout of the Pompeian Court and the round
moon gate placed centrally in the north wall of the Court. (ibid, 2011, 14).
The present mansion occupied the old house's footprint. Agnew designed the building (not the Abercrombie wing to its north-west) in the Art Deco style (which) accounts for the theatrical charm and majesty of the house, no less exemplified than in the experience of the entry and main hall with its curved, scagliola finished staircase, curved wall and pilasters. It is acknowledged as one of the finest Art Deco mansions in Sydney even though it was completed well after the Art Deco period ended (http://mahratta.org.au/Mahratta/about Mahratta).
The new home brought forth much criticism when it was being built because building materials were generally scarce during the years of World War II. Socialists declared that there were enough bricks in the fence to build a forgettable number of workers' cottages! Field was a dream client and Agnew was given a free hand as to the design of Mahratta and its garden> it took at least six months for Agnew to complete the plans, drawings and specifications as he was working completely on his own. During this period he used to travel to the Field family's country home and rural showpiece, Lanyon to discuss his progress. This property (now in the Australian Capital Territory) is now a museum and gallery. Many of Agnew's ideas for Mahratta were inspired by (film director) Frank Capra's film 'Lost Horizons'. The Agnew family still retains the poster used to advertise this film. Agnew's son Brian remembers his father modelling up the clay lion's heads and other details for Mahratta, which were then cast by Wunderlichs in bronze. Agnew drew up everything from the fireplaces, doors, windows, gates to light fittings which then were individually made (Harvey, 2013, 99, 101).
On its completion Field brought Sorensen back to extend and complement his design of the original garden. The curving red gravel driveway was built and Sorensen oversaw planting of the front lawn and the two dawn redwoods (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) and two red Japanese maples (Acer palmatum) that frame the entrance to the house's porte cochere. The wide garden (bed)s facing the house are filled with colourful shrubs set against a backdrop of trees, lily pillies (Syzygium spp.) and other rainforest trees were planted to blend in with the exotics elsewhere in the garden. The walled courtyard at the back (north) of the house leads out through a moon gate to lawns shaded by two Himalayan cedars and on to the pleasant Refectory Courtyard to the left (west). To the right (east) is the tennis court with luxuriant plantings of Rhapis palms and rhododendrons between it and the house and a long garden bed of azaleas and camellias on the eastern (Pacific Highway) boundary (GCoA, 2016, 18).
Much of the 1925 garden by Sorensen was retained and Agnew's daughter-in-law Helen recalls visiting Sorensen with Agnew at his nursery in (Leura) the Blue Mountains. It appears they collaborated on the garden design for Mahratta (Harvey, 2013, 101).
Mr Field died in 1944 but his widow Jessie, continued to live in Mahratta until 1960 (http://mahratta.org.au/Mahratta/about-mahratta.html), along with her children, Thomas Alfred Jr., Ross Alan (AIF) and Heather Maude (Red Cross). When Heather married Geoffrey Prockter in 1952, 'a pink-lined marquee was erected in the grounds of the bride's home for the reception for 150 guests'. The bride and groom sailed to England before making their home in Singapore (Harvey, 2013, 101).
T.A.Field's son Ross Alan Field in 1946 purchased Lot B containing 1 acre 2 roods and 11.25 perches from the owners of the adjacent property Yaamba. This meant that the curtilage of Mahratta was extended on its northern side which gave a more open setting and extended the views to and from the Moon Gate (Harvey, 2013, 101).
The 2 storey house of 15,000 sq.feet together with tennis courts and swimming pool was bought in (Taylor Brammer et al, 2011, 15 add, that all the various lots of land associated with Mahratta were sold at the end of) 1960 by the Bank of NSW (now Westpac Banking Corporation) for use as a training college for its senior officers. Four full time gardeners were employed (Thorne, 1968, 53-7, 143-144).
In the mid 1960s while they worked in Telegraph Road, Pymble, and others in the vicinity Brian Smith (the only apprentice to Landscape Architect & Nuseryman Paul Sorensen)(and sometimes Ib Sorensen) lived for more than 2 years in the attic of an old coach house nearby. They brought supplies and cooked their own meals. One of the jobs they worked on at this time was Mahratta on the corner of Fox Valley Road and the Pacific Highway (McMaugh, 2005, 584-5).
The bank in 1964 built the new three storey Abercrombie wing to the house's north-west, for residential purposes. Though the bricks are closely matched (the original quarries were re-opened for their manufacture), there was no attempt to replicate the Art Deco forms of the rest of the building (http://mahratta.org.au/Mahratta/about-mahratta.html). The orginal 'L' shaped plan of the house with its open court on the northern side of the building became U-shaped and the western side of the court was enclosed (ibid, 2011, 15).
Paul Sorensen was retained by the bank to 'redesign and develop the grounds to a very high standard' (KRGHS, 2013, 101; GCoA, 2016, 19; Ratliffe, 1990, 95-6). Taylor Brammer et al note Sorensen was employed 'to supplement the existing garden layout. He did this by planting a range of exotic and native trees in the lawn areas and introduced shrubberies to the periphery of the property (Mahratta in its entirety, Author's note) complementing the already extensive planting of the garden (ibid, 2011, 15).
Possibly the most significant planting of the time included the cedars, now mature, planted close to the house. The Bunya Bunya pine near to the Fox Valley Road boundary is a local landmark. The major landscaping feature included in the design of the new mansion was the continuous brick fence with its magnificent gateways, matching that of the main house. The bank made some alterations and extensions made to the residence, which were designed by the same architect in a manner sensitive to the original house in scale, materials and details (National Trust of Australia (NSW), 2008, 30).
Prior to putting Mahratta on the market, the Bank employed Schweger Brooks & Partners to prepare a heritage analysis of the property. They noted 'Mr Field chose to retain much of the original landscape and outbuildings'. A ' Pre-1940 Site Plan' included in their report noted the existence of the original 1902 tennis court and pavilion, two 1941 sunken gardens, the 1941 'Rose Walk' and the croquet lawn. Photographs of the original Heverlee / Mahratta show the 1903-4 croquet lawn with balustrade above (Harvey, 2013, 102).
Mahratta was acquired in 1990 (Taylor Brammer et al, 2011, 16 give this date as 1989) by the School of Philosophy which uses it as a venue to conduct public courses in practical philosphy. It also holds events (lectures, workshops and residential retreats for human development (National Trust, 2008, 30:http://mahratta.org.au/Mahratta/about-mahratta.html). The School also runs conferences, lectures and events and residential retreats.
In 1991 Ku-Ring-Gai Municipal Council received 1915m2 of land as a section 94 contribution from development to the west of Mahratta, which formed part of Gerald Allen's 1912 purchases. The western section of the land purchased by Ross Field in 1946 formed part of this development (ibid, 2011, 18). Council has since (2011) made a pocket park on Mahratta's northern edge, named 'Curtilage Park'.
The School of Philosophy's members recognise the historic significance of the property and wish to keep it in good order for future generations. The Friends of Mahratta was established in 2010 to raise much-needed funds for the care of the property. All proceeds from open house and garden events go to the upkeep of the property and students also volunteer help to assist with maintenance (GCoA, 2016, 19). |