| Historical notes: | Statement of Country:
Wyoming is on Wangal land which for many thousands of years was used by Aboriginal people, including the neighbouring Gadigal, as seen in tangible markers such as sandstone overhangs and middens. The whole Balmain peninsula was once scrubby bush (Read, 2011, 1). The landscape and harbour provided food resources for gathering, hunting and fishing. Its sandstone overhangs gave shelter (AILA, 2018). Aboriginal people express an ongoing connection to Wangal Country and enduring social significance.
Aboriginal history:
Wangal Country, known as 'wanne', extended along the Parramatta River from Tumbalong (Darling Harbour) west to Silverwater and Rose Hill (near Parramatta).
Long Nose Point, Birchgrove is called Yurulbin ('swift running waters') by Wangal people because of the change in water movement around it where the bays of the Parramatta River to the west are protected from open waters of the harbour to the east. It is also referred to as 'waters meet' (Reid, 2018, 107).
Early European activity:
In early colonial years 'gentlemen sportsmen' hunted deer, kangaroo and other game onto and on this peninsula. Mobs of kangaroos were driven from the 'Kangaroo Ground' plains of Leichhardt and Ashfield to the Balmain Peninsula's narrowest part (Yurulbin - see Birchgrove below). Timber-dealers, grass-cutters and woodmen denuded much of the land of its trees (Read, 2011, 1).
Balmain Estate:
Colonial surgeon Dr William Balmain was granted much of Balmain in 1800 (550 acres - today's Balmain and Rozelle). His grant was subdivided in 1836. Land at Ballast Point on Waterview (now Mort) Bay was sold in 1839 but not until the early 1840s depression did a surge of subdivisions carve up the grant. The district started suburbanising as workers found lodgings close to town, and transport improved. In 1846, 19.6% of Sydney's population lived here, the largest residential area in the colony. Its deep waters attracted maritime industry. By 1851 the population was 1397, a mix of middle-and working-class, some in elegant houses, others, cottages. Balmain Municipal Council formed in 1860 and by 1871, the population was 6272, one of Sydney's largest. The Illustrated Sydney News of 11 July 1889 declared it the "working men's' paradise", with a population of 27,000, in 5000 houses (Read, 2011, 1).
Key influences accelerating its growth were building Mort's Dock (1855) and opening Pyrmont Bridge (1857): Balmain was an early location for industry. The 1850s and 1860s saw industrial and port expansion, residential and commercial growth. Development spread to Rozelle in the 1870s. An 1880s boom saw the infilling of Birchgrove. In 1897 two shafts were sunk from Water Street (Birchgrove / Balmain) to mine coal under Darling Harbour - the colliery closing in 1931 (NTA (NSW), 1981).
Birch Grove Estate (now Birchgrove) and Ballast Point:
The Birchgrove part (north-east) of the peninsula (Yurulbin) was excluded from Balmain's grant. Then called Whitfield's Farm. It ran from Snails Bay (named in 1810), to Long Nose Point. When the point was so-named, a rocky nose-like protuberance jutted into the harbor. This has since eroded. 30 acres were granted in 1796 to Private George Whitfield of the NSW Corps, who had to pay annual 'quit rent' of a shilling after five years, provide timber for naval purposes, live on and cultivate it. He is said to have established an orange grove. It passed through several hands before being acquired by John Birch, paymaster of the 73rd (Macquarie's) Regiment, in 1810 (Read, 2011).
After 1814 the estate was sold and tenanted by a string of people including (sea) Captain William Deloitte. It was not subdivided after Deloitte's lease expired (1856) until 1860 (by developer and then-owner Didier Joubert. Within six years Joubert sold only seven allotments. The estate was eventually mortgaged to the Bank of New South Wales. By 1878, only twenty-three lots were sold. Early residents were Sydney professionals, travelling to town by ferry, small speculators or builders, quarrying land for buildings elsewhere. In 1986 twenty-four houses, eighteen of weatherboard, remained from those first eighteen years. Today fifteen remain.
The estate was for sale again in 1878 and after initially failing to sell all lots sold by 1882. 36 lots were bought by the NSW Government for Birch Grove Recreation Ground (later Oval). The mud flats, by now repository of garbage and effluent from an industrialised and urbanised harbour, were designated 'proposed park'. Public concerns over pollution led agitation to reclaim Snail's Bay. A trust formed in 1882 (Trustees included architect and Councillor Edward Buchanan, Quarton Deloitte of Wyoming and architect Ferdinand Reuss Jnr. (active in Glebe) and prepared a plan of landscaped gardens, walks, shrubbery and 'big oval cricket ground'. Reclamation reduced Birch Grove House's garden but improved the area. The park was fenced in 1884 with a cricket pitch by 1885. By 1887 a dyke wall was formed to reclaim the swamp. That year, caretaker Thomas Rose and two men laid out its grounds. The 1890s depression halted work, resumed in 1897. By 1904 a tennis pavilion and grandstand stood. Other subdivisions followed in 1900 and 1911. Today, huge fig trees frame Birchgrove Oval and give some sense of a former landscape estate (Read, 2011, 4, modified).
Birchgrove and Ballast Point Conservation Area cover the area of Whitfield's grant (Birchgrove) and sections of John Gilchrist's Balmain Estate (Ballast Point). Sydney's 1880s boom saw many lots taken up and villas in stone or brick built. This tongue of sandstone at the western end of the harbour attracted industries dependent on water (shipbuilding and repair) or on water for transport of raw materials (timber yards, cooperage, coal yard, oil refinery). Birchgrove was also site of a power cable tunnel to the north side of the harbour 1913-1926.
Along Ballast Point east of Birchgrove Park, land was released for subdivision and sale in 1852. It was part of John Gilchrist's 550-acre Balmain Estate, and subdivisional activities across the estate had been suspended in 1841 with disputes over his will. Once resolved, Surveyor Charles Langley subdivided the remaining acres using existing contour-aligned routes such as Darling Street, Birchgrove Road and Ballast Point Road to delineate parcels. The sections were purchased over the next thirty years by wealthy investors, local speculators and builders.
Speculators Joshua Josephson, Didier Joubert, Charles Smith, William Cover and George Thorne bought up land on both sides of Ballast Point Road in 1853. This marine location, with most lots possessing water frontages, attracted keen bidding.
By 1891 the process of building up Ballast Point Road, Wharf Road, Yeend, Ronald and Lemm Streets was largely complete. There were marine villas on generous parcels along Wharf Road. They were sited well up from the waterfront for a stylish setting and for views, with their backs to the road. Large terraces and villas occupied the high ground along Ballast Point Road.
The Hermitage, later Wyoming, Wharf Road:
Wyoming was built in 1881 around an earlier single-storey stone cottage, The Hermitage (c.1859 - 61)(LSJ Heritage Planning & Architecture, 2021) home from 1867 to 1877 of shipwright James Yeend, who ran his yard below. Its wharf was almost certainly the original of Wharf Road (LSJ Heritage Planning & Architecture, 2021).
The property was (previously) owned by John Symons, shipwright of Balmain who subdivided the land in c.1861 (LSJ Heritage Planning & Architecture, 2021). Reid (2018, 94) gives a date of 1859 for this.
Quarton L. Deloitte bought three allotments, amalgamating them into one (LSJ Architects, 2021). He built Wyoming much as it is today. George Allen Mansfield (1834 - 1908) was in 1850 articled to John Frederick Hilly, then Sydney's leading architect. Mansfield went into partnership as Hilly & Mansfield, and later into business on his own, acquiring an extensive clientele. He was responsible for some of Sydney's most prominent public and commercial buildings. State Heritage Register-listed public buildings by him include Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Pitt Street Uniting Church and the Bank of NSW, Barrack Street. From 1867 he was architect to the Council of Education, responsible for public schools, state-wide. In 1871 he was elected first president of the Institute of Architects (now AIA - NSW Chapter). For nine years he was an Alderman on Glebe Municipal Council and designed many new houses and additions to older ones.
Deloitte was son of sea captain William Deloitte who'd grown up in nearby Birch Grove House (Read, Stuart, pers. Comm., 30/4/2013). His family would become associated with Birchgrove (Wharf Road in particular) over nearly 100 years (AHC, 1996) and were prominent in shipping, accountancy, sugar production and the theatre (ibid, 2018, 94). Quarton was secretary of the Colonial Sugar Refinery (CSR) for 50 years (Read, 2011, 6), a prominent citizen of Balmain, decades-long patron of the Sydney Rowing Club and often referred to as 'the father of rowing' (Reid, 2018, 98).
Following enlargement of cottage into fashionable villa, a large fernery was built on the site of the former sheds (on the lowest terrace by the harbour). It was an impressive timber structure with a curving roof, on a brick plinth (ibid, 2018, 107). The detached kitchen (block) of The Hermitage was demolished (Hector Abrahams Architects, submission, 5/8/2024).
Deloitte was a keen gardener, terracing the site and laying out lawns, trees, shrubs and a glasshouse (ibid, 30/4/2013). He was described after his death as a 'lover of beautiful things and of the art of gracious and comfortable living'. Deloitte imported a prefabricated glasshouse. 'It was remarkable in its day and is an extraordinarily rare survival' says the owner. He was an avid collector of orchids and imported it as a prefabricated structure from England. It proved unsuitable for orchids other than tropical ones (Reid, 2018, 104)
In Deloitte's absence in 1884 Wyoming was tenanted by legendary Russian scientist, explorer and humanist, Nicholai Mikluho-Maklai (aka Nicholas Maclay, Nicolai Miklouho-Maclay) (1846-1888) and his wife Margaret, the widowed daughter of five-times NSW Premier Sir John Robertson. Although little-known in Australia, Maklai is revered as a folk hero in Russia and the Ukraine (ibid, 2011, 6). Maklai proposed a marine biological research station at Watson's Bay (first in the Southern hemisphere and still standing). This brought him into contact with Robertson. He subsequently married Margaret and their first child, Nils, was born here. Maklai commuted by ferry from Snails Bay to Watsons Bay (ibid, 2018, 96) where he established the station (RNE). He was responsible for anthropological and exploration activity in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands (Reid, 2011, 6).
In the late Deloitte period (c.1890 -1920) the existing service wing and two car garages were built (ibid, 2024). In 1904, a main sewer line was run across the site, beneath the retaining wall and through the fernery. This meant raising the ground at the foot of the retaining wall, and the south end of the fernery, into a terrace. These features - remnant dock, fernery base, and terrace above the sewer line - dictated the form of the new (Lower) Garden (Reid, 2018, 107).
When Deloitte died in 1927, Wyoming was absorbed by adjacent maritime industry of Nicholson Bros. (Nicholson Bros. Harbour Transport Co., maritime engineering and tugboat company (ibid, 2021), later Stannard Bros. who ran tugs (and ferries). Both operated from its lower terrace and foreshore lands and employees tenanted the house, converted into flats (ibid, 2021). Set below the street, it was soon forgotten and neglected (Reid, 2018, 96).
The Orchid House was converted into a dark room by an amateur photographer / tenant during this phase (Sullivan, J., pers. comm., 15/7/2019).
In 1989 the house was threatened with demolition with redundant industry; Stannard Brothers proposed replacing it with 10 town houses and others in front of no's 21 & 23 Wharf Road. This galvanised the neighbourhood into action. The Snail's Bay Residents Group was formed to save it and succeeded in preserving Ballast Point, leading to its acquisition as park land (Reid, 2021).
After a five-year campaign, Stannard Brothers sold Wyoming to the present owners, who in 1989 were living at 27 Wharf Road. Mikluho-Maklai's elevated (international) status played a vital part in its preservation. So revered was he that over a century later, the Leichhardt Municipal Council meeting considering the application was reported in 'Pravda', screened live on Soviet television (Reid, 2018, 94). The meeting was addressed by Soviet Consul General, Ivan Shchbakov and passed a unanimous motion to reject the application and request a State Government demolition prevention order, which was accepted, followed by NSW State Heritage Register listing.
In 1989 the house was seven flats (ibid, 2018, 94). In 1994 a conservation management plan was prepared by Clive Lucas, Stapleton & Partners (CLSP) and used as the basis for restoration. Work began that year. CLSP and particularly Ian Stapleton left his signature with creation of a conservatory-kitchen, added to the original stone-flagged scullery. The house was converted to a single residence by removing the flats' kitchens and bathrooms, mainly on closed-in verandahs, which were re-opened. This left original fabric mostly intact. Evidence of the flats and maritime industry era survive in retained large power board, cabling, letter boxes and wire front fence (ibid, 2011, 6-8). Heritage consultant and garden historian Dr James Broadbent advised on contemporary wallpaper, furniture and soft furnishings (Read, 2011, 6-8).
The surviving physical evidence of Deloitte's late 19th century garden was supplemented by documentary evidence. Historic photos by (Harold) Cazneaux in a 1929 'Australian Home Beautiful' article were an invaluable guide to multiple discoveries: original iron lacework identified when a waterfront burn-off was approved by the EPA; first floor verandah posts that had become part of an arbor; parts of finials and a ridge capping of the Orchid house found lying around. Others were made: a network of hexagonal drainage channels in the Orchid house floor; the original well described in an 1868 advertisement as 'never-failing spring well' under the main verandah floor and the 1850s stone flagging under a flat's floor and in the scullery (Read, 2011, 6-8).
Restoration of the garden began in 1999 (Reid, 2018). Heritage landscape architect Michael Lehany designed it in 2000, creating in front of the house an intricate Victorian garden, including a cactus garden, Extensive traditional planting was undertaken by the owners to augment what survived (Read, 2011, 6-8).
Woven wire arbors were copied from one surviving, stone balustrades were restored, old concrete steps and paths repaired and re-laid. Dr Broadbent says: 'The structure of the old garden was re-affirmed before being overlaid, or furnished, with rich and varied - but traditional - planting. The holm oak (Quercus ilex) and frangipani (Plumeria rubra cv's) flanking the verandah steps and a tree gardenia (G. thunbergii) were the main survivors of decades of neglect. This reflects Deloitte's and the present owners' horticultural interests: orchids, cacti, succulents, bamboos and frangipani.' (Read, 2011, 6-8; Reid, 2018, 104).
The principal surviving Victorian feature - the Orchid house - has been meticulously restored (Reid, 2018, 104).'
Yeend's shipyard comprised a wharf, dock and associated buildings (Reid, 2018, 104). The dock had been closed in with Moruya granite, off-cuts from Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was restored in c.2000: this part in granite; the rest in large sandstone (Read, 2011, 6-8). It was a small swimming pool at one time. Behind it various cuttings in the rock wall testify to industrial use of the site (Reid, 2018, 104). In WWII, the stub wall was filled in with soil, enabling a veggie patch to be created. This has been reinstated. The dock today is a bog garden (Read, 2011, 6-8).
The new garden on the waterfront was designed by Broadbent, largely constructed and planted in 2011. The 1850s seawall was derelict (Read, 2011, 6-8). The 1904 main sewer line run across the site through the fernery meant raising the ground at the foot of the (retaining) wall, and at the end of the fernery, into a terrace. The remnant dock, fernery base, and terrace dictated the form of the new (Lower) Garden. The owners were determined that the newer part was to be understated. It is for relaxation, respecting the history of the site, adding a small vegetable garden (Reid, 2018, 107).
Of Deloitte's fernery with massive, vaulted roof of slats on a brick plinth, only its plinth remained. The 1904 sewer installation went through the back of it. Although care was taken, the works and resultant rubble greatly downgraded the area. The roof eventually became ruinous and was removed. With little known of its detail and nothing of the planting of this lower area, no attempt has been made to re-create any form of 'period' garden.
In 2000 a small kitchen ('conservatory-style', single-storey) addition was added (Hector Abrahams Architects, submission, 5/8/2024) to the west of the villa.
It is unclear why Deloitte named the house Wyoming. It seems an improbable choice for an 1880s Sydney home as it is an American Indian name meaning 'big plains'. As he travelled widely it is possible that Wyoming in the USA could have been a special place of orchid interest, or a CSR connection (Read, 2011, 6-8). |