| Historical notes: | The Ryde area was highly suitable for farming and orchards, and early grants to marines were given to encourage agriculture. In 1792 land in the area was granted to 8 marines; two of the grants were in the modern area of Ryde. Isaac Archer and John Colethread each received 80 acres of land on the site of the present Ryde-Parramatta Golf Links, now in West Ryde. Later in 1792, in the Eastern Farms area, 12 grants, most of them about 30 acres, were made to convicts. Much later these farms were bought by John Macarthur, Gregory Blaxland and the Reverend Samuel Marsden. The district remained an important orchard area throughout the 19th century (Pollen, 1996, 234-5).
The Marsden family
The land on which Riverview was built is part of Samuel Marsden's 335 acres, in the Parishes of Hunters Hill and Field of Mars, County of Cumberland. Part of this land was 100 acres which Marsden received as a grant in October 1794. (Present day Marsden Road runs through this grant). To this Marsden added land he had purchased - the grants of marines Cottrell and Tynan, and those of Captain Campbell and George Barrington. These lands were consolidated into one grant of 335 acres, issued in August 1803 and known as Kingston Farm. Winbourne Street marks its eastern boundary (Research Notes prepared by John McClymont).
In his will Marsden left Kingston to his daughter Anne for her life time, thereafter to pass to her daughter Catherine Elizabeth. Marsden died in May 1838. In 1873 Anne Hassall, nee Marsden, and her daughter, now Catherine Elizabeth Hope (one of Catherine Elizabeth Hope's descendants was the historian, C.M.H. Clarke (H Hope)), decided to sell the land. It was subdivided into twenty-two lots and offered for sale as the One Tree Hill estate, to be auctioned on 20 June 1873 by J.Y. Mills. (Subdivision Plan, One Tree Hill. Ryde Library ref 36.1873.ONE; Mitchell Library Ref D13/29)
George Spurway of Pennant Hills, farmer, purchased the two north-eastern sections, lots 13 and 14 of three acres, 21 perches, for (Pounds)68.17.9 in November 1873 (Indenture of 11 Nov 1873, Primary Application Packet 40065).
Whilst there is evidence that Marsden had farmed his grant in the early years of the colony, there is, at present, no indication of the uses made of this land from c.1810 through to its sale in 1873. It was probably leased for farming. There is a road alignment plan of the area, dated April 1862. It does not show any structures. (5 Copy of plan in possession of Beverley McClymont) The subdivision plan does not indicate any structures.
The Spurway family
George Spurway senior (1806-1885) was a farmer in Devon, England who was transported to New South Wales in 1829 at the age of 22 with a life sentence for house-breaking and stealing from his employer. On arrival in the colony, he was immediately assigned to work at the Brush Farm estate of Gregory Blaxland, probably because of his previous experience in orchard farming in Devonshire. By 1835 Spurway had become overseer of the convicts working on the Brush Farm estate. His masters were Gregory Blaxland and then Blaxland's son-in law, Dr Thomas Foster, who purchased the estate in 1831.
Spurway received his ticket of leave in 1838 and leased a farm from Dr Foster adjoining Brush Farm where he established his own orchard. By 1842 Spurway was winning agricultural prizes for his fruit and whilst still holding a ticket of leave, was appointed to the committee of the Floral and Horticultural Society (Spurway, J., ed. Australian Biographical and Genealogical Record. Series 1. 1788-1841. Sydney: ABGR/SAG, 1992, p. 404 ) He purchased his first land in 1842 on the hillside near Brush Farm. (His home was on the site of Lottie Stewart Hospital). He received a conditional pardon in 1846.
Spurway married an emancipist woman, Frances Johnson nee Pratt in 1835 at St Anne's Church, Ryde. They had six children; their youngest, George Spurway, was born at Dundas in 1843.
George Spurway the younger (1843-1913) grew up on the family orchard on the southern side of present-day Stewart Street, Dundas. He married in 1862 and with his wife and children continued to live at Dundas in a house provided by his father in present Spurway Street. About 1869 George the younger moved to Bathurst with his family where he established a fruit shop. He remained in Bathurst until about 1877 but his links with Dundas remained essential for his business interests, as the fruit he sold west of the mountains came from his orchards in Sydney. (Spurway, J., ed. Australian Biographical and Genealogical Record. Series 1. 1788-1841. Sydney: ABGR/SAG, 1992, p. 407-8)
While George Spurway the younger was in Bathurst, he purchased three acres of Marsden's Kingston Farm estate in 1873. The land was opposite his family's properties in Stewart Street - and opposite the Brush Farm estate, located near the present intersection of Marsden Road, Stewart Street and Rutledge Street. The transfer indenture is made out to George Spurway of Pennant Hills, rather than of Bathurst, so it is possible that his father George senior attended the auction on the ground and bid for the land for his son. (Indenture of 11Nov 1873, Primary Application Packet 40065; Spurway, J., ed. Australian Biographical and Genealogical Record. Series 1. 1788-1841. Sydney: ABGR/SAG, 1992, p. 407-8) On this land was built Riverview.
By 1877-78 (and certainly by July 1878) George the younger had returned to Dundas. In 1878 George and his brother James received a gift of 55 acres of orchards on Stewart Street from their father. This gift possibly influenced the timing of George's return from Bathurst to Dundas. James in 1895 transferred his interest in this land to his brother George.
George, wife Ann and their surviving daughters Annie (1864-1936) and Eveline (1869-1945) made their home at Riverview on their return from Bathurst. (Spurway, J., ed. Australian Biographical and Genealogical Record. Series 1. 1788-1841. Sydney: ABGR/SAG, 1992, p. 407-8)
The brick house was built in three sections. The first section was a two room cottage which faced the river, hence its name, Riverview. It had no windows in the northern side which faces Brush Farm House. This section now forms the rear wing of the house. It is possible that this small cottage was built while George Spurway the younger was still in Bathurst. The second section of the house was a four room brick cottage to the west of, and adjoining the original two rooms, forming two sides of a courtyard. It seems likely that this larger cottage was built c. 1878 - 1880 to accommodate the family that moved back to Dundas in 1878. A large rear kitchen, with cellar below, was added to the eastern side of the original two room section. The third and eastern side of the courtyard was completed with a two storey stable and coach house and a single storey brick dairy (RNE Database).
The outline of the Spurway house, with kitchen wing and coachhouse, is shown most clearly on the subdivision plan for Brush Farm Estate by Gibbs Shallard and Co in 1880. (Subdivision of Brush Farm, Ryde Library Ref B15.1880 BRUS) (See appendix) It is also visible, in less detail in the plans for the sale of Dr West's land at Brush Farm in1886. (Brush Farm blocks, Mills & Pile 11 March 1886, Ryde Library Ref B36.1886 BRUS; Brush Farm - improved villa sites, Mills & Pile 29 May 1886, Ryde Library Ref B36.1886 BRUS )
The house now faced Marsden Road, had only one window on the northern side which faced Brush Farm, while the southern side of the interior courtyard was open to the garden, the river view, and the prevailing winds. The house remains as configured by c.1880s with interior fittings from this time such as the fitted sideboard and cupboards in the dining room and a Lassetter's kitchen range.
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).
George prospered as an orchardist, ultimately owning 246 acres by inheritance and purchase in the area of Dundas and Brush Farm. He acquired further land from the Marsden estate, including the adjoining Lot 15, which he purchased from J.F.Ducker in 1896. (Will of George Spurway in Primary Application Packet 40065) He was elected as an alderman in the first Dundas Council in 1889 and continued to serve in that capacity for 19 years.
The Spurway family, together with the Mobbs and Midson families among whom various generations had intermarried, was one of the earliest and most successful pioneering orchardists in the Ryde/Parramatta district and was responsible for the development of the major agricultural activity in the region in the nineteenth century.
The family remembered its convict origins. In front of Riverview until the 1890s was a large stone that George Spurway the elder had once lifted to prove his strength to the convicts under his control. (Spurway, J., ed. Australian Biographical and Genealogical Record. Series 1.1788-1841. Sydney: ABGR/SAG, 1992, p. 404)
George Spurway the younger died at Riverview in May 1913, survived by his wife Anne and daughters Eveline and Annie and 18 grandchildren. (Spurway, J., ed. Australian Biographical and Genealogical Record. Series 1.1788-1841.Sydney: ABGR/SAG, 1992, p. 407-8 ) His will divided his extensive properties among his daughters and sons-in-law. Lots 13 and 14 of Marsden's estate, together with Lot 15, and forming an estate of seven acres were left to his wife for her life time and then to his daughter Eveline Cook for her life time, without power of sale, and then to her children as tenants in common.
This will ensured that the house and the surrounding land remained unaltered for two generations.
Ann Spurway died in 1915. Her daughter Eveline Cook died in 1945. Her eight children - Guy Evelyn Dundas Cook of Hunters Hill, company director (b.1891); Albert Clyde Cook of Ourimbah, orchardist (b.1901); Merle Matilda Trist of Villawood (1899); Eileen Ann Lukins of Parramatta North (b.1903); Edna Dorothy Patison of Longueville (b.1895); Margery Victoria Lukins of Strathfield (b.1897);Helen Edith Farley of Killara (b.1905); Una Mary Dundas Henniker of Melbourne (b.1893) - as beneficiaries of the will inherited Riverview and its adjoining seven acres of land. In 1947 the two sons sold their shares to their six sisters for (Pounds)287.10.0. (Deed of 19 December 1947 in Real Property Application 40065; family tree of George Spurway prepared by Paul Goard, 1997.)
One of the daughters, Merle Matilda Trist and her husband moved into Riverview and lived there as weekly tenants. The six sisters were the owners of Riverview when they applied to have it converted to Torrens Title in 1957. (Statutory Declarations in Real Property Application 40065) While this was being processed, the six sisters took out a mortgage of (Pounds)6,000 with Kenneth Charles Beveridge Davies, company director. The conditions noted that the sisters were to expedite the Primary Application, that they were to spend up to (Pounds)3000 on preparation of plans and the construction of a road through the site to enable council approval of a subdivision.(Mortgage in Real Property Application 40065)
After conversion to Torrens Title, the seven acres was divided into two portions, along a line opposite Emu Street. (Plan of PA 40065, in Real Property Application 40065; DP 28205 marked on map of DP218486) The northern portion was further subdivided in 1963, creating 14 suburban blocks. (Plan of PA 40065, in Real Property Application 40065; DP 28205 marked on map of (DP 218486) An area to the north of the house on the Rutledge Street frontage was resumed for road widening. (DP 218486) The lots on Rutledge and Winbourne Streets were purchased in 1963 by A.V.Jennings who built seven houses, the first model exhibition homes in Ryde Municipality. These houses are now recognised on Ryde's local heritage list.
The house Riverview, with its outbuildings was on Lot 1, an area of 1r 2.75p. The portion adjoining it to the south, Lot 14, was 30.35p. Though two legally distinct portions of land from 1963, these two lots remained together in one ownership without a dividing fence for the next thirty years.
Mrs Merle Trist lived in the house with the existing garden forming the adjoining lot. It seems probable that she acquired the house and grounds as her one-sixth division of the property when it was subdivided, but documentary evidence of this has not yet been cited. Mrs Merle Trist lived in the house until c.1982 when due to ill-health she moved to a nursing home where she died in 1988. She had lived in the house sincec.1948 and her departure after 34 years of occupation, ended almost 110 years of Spurway family association with Riverview and its grounds.
Riverview was included in an Historic Buildings list for Ryde in 1973. It was listed as a recorded building in the National Trust Register published in 1976. It was more formally recognised as a heritage item by Ryde Council in a schedule attached to its Planning Scheme of 1979. (National Trust Register, December 31, 1976, p.44).
Riverview was classified by the National Trust in 1981 following a detailed assessment by Clive Lucas who noted the house, its remnant Victorian garden and mature fig trees. Though the address is given as 135 Marsden Road in the listing, the property at this time was 133-135 Marsden Road.
Riverview was identified as an item of state significance in the Heritage Study of Ryde Municipality from 1985-1988. (Falk and Associates, Ryde Heritage Study, 1988). It was listed as an item of state significance in the Ryde Heritage Conservation Strategy - Heritage Inventory, adopted by Ryde City Council in March 1995.
It was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission as an item for the Register of the National Estate (with the suburban address cited as Dundas).
Each of these heritage assessments notes the relationship of the house to its garden curtilage. Two mature Port Jackson fig trees (Ficus rubiginosa) dominate the garden closest to the house. A mature Canary Island date palm tree (Phoenix canariensis) is on the adjacent garden lot where there is evidence of an earlier Victorian cottage garden. There was concern that a recent development proposal on the then vacant garden lot would damage the root systems of the substantial Port Jackson fig trees. This house has since been approved by Ryde City Council and built. A programme of remedial care has ensured the survival of the figs and improvement in their condition, with time.
There are no surviving houses in the district belonging to the other important early orchardist family, the Mobbs family.
Riverview with its adjoining garden was sold in 1982 and the new owners, Mr and Mrs William Taylor, purchased both lots and renovated the house and its garden. To all exterior appearances, the house and its garden remained the same as they had for the past century.
In 1995 Mr and Mrs Taylor put the house and garden up for sale. The house lot was purchased by V. Sirivivatnanon and J. Noble. The garden lot remained unsold. No fence was erected and the new owners continued to maintain the garden. In 1997 the garden lot was sold by the Taylors and Ryde Council approved an application to build a two storey dwelling on the then vacant garden lot. |