“Ardill House”, formerly “Clermont House”, 132 Davidson Avenue, Concord, New South Wales The Integricare Early Learning Centre now occupies the historic home in the western Sydney suburb of Concord built in 1861 and named “Clermont House”. It was a thirteen-room, single-storey structure designed by John Bibb for the merchant, Henry Bray, and was a good example of an elegant Mid. Victorian gentleman’s family residence. In 1880 the house was enlarged with the addition of an upper floor. After Bray’s death in 1896, the house was leased, then in 1910 acquired by Archibald Core and the estate subdivided. In 1917, Clermont House and a small parcel of land was purchased for use by the Society for Providing Homes for Neglected Children, a charitable organisation founded by the evangelist and social worker, George Ardill, in 1885. Clermont House became a children’s home and was eventually renamed Ardill House. In 1983 it became part of a chain of long day childcare centres.
Ardill House was built on three grants of land, totalling 22 acres and 34 perches made to Henry David Bray (1835-1896) on 10 January 1859 by the Governor, Sir William Thomas Denison (1804–1871). Henry Bray was born in Sydney, the son of Thomas Bray (1792-1855), a ship’s carpenter, and Ann Bray nee Bloodworth (1798-1875). The Bray family had been established at Concord since 1795 but Henry had been born at Binda, in the Central West of New South Wales. At the time, Henry Bray’s Concord land was known as Burwood and was the second property registered in New South Wales under the Real Property Act, or Torrens System, and was also subject to the first mortgage under the Act. The Torrens System was a statutory system of registration designed to simplify and facilitate the transfer of land. It replaced the Old System of common law titles where the burden of proof of ownership fell on the individual. The Torrens System was named after Sir Robert Richard Torrens (1812-1884) a South Australian politician who, in 1857, initiated the legislation which commenced in that State the following year. In New South Wales the same system was introduced in 1862.
Henry Bray’s original home was built on the land in 1859, and in 1861 Clermont House was erected (the earlier home being used as a laundry). The house’s architect, John Bibb (1810-1862), had arrived in Sydney from Liverpool, England, in 1832 and became an assistant to John Verge (1782-1861), one of the State’s most prominent architects. After Verge retired in 1837, Bibb began his own practise in Phillip Street, Sydney.
Clermont was constructed of stuccoed brick with external walls being 14 inches (36 cm) thick, and verandahs around three sides of the house supported by cast-iron grille columns paired at the entrance. French windows opened onto the verandah which was covered by a concave iron roof. The main house was basically square in shape with mostly 14 feet (4.3 metres) high ceilings comprising the dining room and drawing room, with a bow window, on either side of the entrance hall. There were two bedrooms, one of which had a dressing room, nursery, school room and butler’s pantry. At the rear an attached wing contained a pantry, kitchen scullery and servants’ rooms, all with 9-foot 6-inch (2.9 metre) ceilings. In 1880 a second storey with a slate hipped roof, was added above the original dining room, hall and library. This gave the house an asymmetrical appearance spoiling Bibb’s elegant facade.
Henry Bray was a well-known merchant and community figure in the area. He was an alderman on Concord Council for many years and the borough’s third mayor between 1890 and 1891. At the age of 61 Henry died of a stroke at Clermont on 12 August 1896 after which the house was transferred to his widow, Annie Australia Bray nee Davison (1856-1953). Annie leased Clermont to William Winn from 1897 until 1900, then surgeon, T.H. Barker from 1901 until 1904, followed by Hans Keller from 1906 until 1907 and Daniel Kenny from 1908 until 1910. In that year a bathroom was built in the upstairs level and the house was acquired by Archibald Core. Archibald’s eldest daughter, Margaret, was married at Clermont in 1911. Seven years later, Archibald’s company, began subdivision of the estate into business and building sites.
In December 1917 agents, Hugh Duff & Co. reported that they had sold Clermont House and 1½ acres of land for 1,900 pounds for use by the Society for Providing Homes for Neglected Children. The society had been formed by George Edward Ardill (1857-1945) born at Parramatta into a Baptist family. From his twenties George had devoted himself fulltime to the organisation of charitable work. He began a temperance society, the Blue Ribbon Gospel Army, and was an active member of the New Soth Wales Aboriginal Protection Board. While spreading the gospel at late-night street meetings, Ardill came across destitute and homeless women for whom he set up a shelter. In the early 1880s an Open All Night Refuge and the Home of Hope for Friendless and Fallen Women were opened, the latter of which was a lying-in hospital. He subsequently provided accommodation for unwanted children and in 1885 founded the Society for Providing Homes for Neglected Children. The first, Our Babies Home, was opened at Liverpool in 1887, and in 1890, Our Boys’ Farm at Camden, donated by the musician, merchant and philanthropist, William Henry Paling (1825–1895). To finance these institutions and numerous others, Ardill formed the Sydney Rescue Work Society which became a major charitable organisation.
Our Children’s Home at Liverpool was closed in 1918 and officially reopened at Clermond House on Saturday, 10 August 1918. Lady Mary Cook (nee Turner), wife of Sir Joseph Cook, G.C.M.G., the Federal Minister for the Navy and one-time Prime Minister, ceremoniously unlocked the front door and declared the building open. The dedicatory prayer was supplied by the Rev. Canon Ernest Henry Beales Claydon, a prominent Anglican clergyman, who announced the new premises would be called “Olliver House”. It was named after Frederick K. Olliver (d. 1907) the benefactor who had provided funds for the purchase in 1887 of the society’s Liverpool home. Our Children’s Home Olliver House was later changed to “Ardill House” after the organisation’s famous founder. At first, twenty-four children were accommodated in the home but this increased over time.
Gradually George Ardill’s system of cottage-based homes used to accommodate expectant mothers, babies and children became too expensive to operate, particularly in terms of staff expenses and mortgages. The Home of Hope became the South Sydney Women’s Hospital and eventually Ardill House was the last of Ardill’s homes to remain open. After Ardill’s death in 1945, his son, also called George Edward Ardill (1889-1964), became executive director of the Society for Providing Homes for Neglected Children. George Ardill jun. had been an auctioneer, garage proprietor and later won the seat of Yass in the Legislative Assembly in 1930, eventually becoming Government Whip.
The old stables at Ardill House were demolished in 1949 for a new toilet block built in 1952 and three new rooms, a pantry, playroom and dining room, were added to the old house in 1965. After Ardill jun.’s death in 1964 the role of executive director went to the Congregational minister, Rev. H.E. Rowland. By then local charities, churches, service clubs and sporting organisations helped to finance Our Children’s Home, which provided refuge for up to forty-five children.
In line with a change in policy within the New South Wales Department of Youth and Community Services, Ardill House ceased operating as a children’s home in 1983. The Society re-assessed the changing demands of modern society and restructured its role in terms of responding to the great need for long-day care. A new building was officially opened next to Ardill House on 30 May 1987 to operate in conjunction with the original house as a child care centre for 53 children up to the age of five years.
Major References
Coupe, Sheen, “Concord: A Centenary History”. The Council of the Municipality of Concord, NSW, 1983.
Information on the history of Ardill House supplied by K. Elliott, Ardill House, 1989
Simpson, Margaret, “Old Sydney Buildings: A Social History, Vol. II”. Unpublished manuscript.
“Yaralla”, former home of Thomas and Dame Edith Walker, The Drive, Concord, New South Wales The two-storey Victorian Italianate house called “Yaralla” stands on an amazing estate located on the shores of the Parramatta River at Concord in Sydney’s Western Suburbs. It was built between 1857 and 1869 to the design of architect, Edmund Blackett.
The Yaralla Estate has been described as one of Sydney’s best kept secrets, comprising 100 acres of open paddocks, gardens and bushland in the middle of Sydney. The Estate was developed by the wealthy merchant, banker and benefactor, Thomas Walker. After his death in 1886, Thomas’ only child, Eadith, developed the gardens, slightly enlarged the house and added stables and a coach house. These were designed by John Sulman and built between 1893 and 1899. Yaralla became one of Sydney’s most fashionable residences, renown for lavish parties and balls. It once boasted a tennis court, croquet lawn, hot houses, private wharf, squash court, dairy, fountains, a swimming pool, bathing pavilion and a small private power station to generate its own electricity. After Dame Eadith’s death in 1937, Yaralla was bequeathed to the State as a convalescent hospital, managed by the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. In the late 1980s the convalescent hospital closed and the house then served as a renal dialysis unit.
The land on which Yaralla was built was originally part of a 50-acre grant made on the 20 December 1797 to the convict, Isaac Nicholls (1770-1819), after his sentence had expired. Isaac established a successful farm on his grant and expanded his business interests to inns and shipbuilding. In March 1809 Isaac was appointed Superintendent of Public Works, Assistant to the Naval Officer, and shortly afterwards, the colony’s first postmaster. On his death in 1819, Isaac was survived by his three sons.
It appears Isaac Nicholl’s second son, George Robert Nicholls (1809-1857), inherited his father’s Concord land. In 1813, G.R. Nicholls was the first native-born Australian admitted as a solicitor in New South Wales. By 1857 the Nicholls farm had been developed into a large fruit orchard producing Seville, China and dwarf oranges, apples, pears, plums, peaches, nectarine, apricots, cherries, figs, strawberries, pomegranates and grapes. In that year the farm was acquired Thomas Walker (1804-1886) who was born in Leith, Scotland, and had arrived in Sydney in 1822 to join his maternal uncle’s firm of general merchants. In 1837 Thomas rode overland to Melbourne and made astute purchases of land prior to that City’s expansion, which contributed to his eventual vast wealth. His Sydney company continued to grow, expanding with the addition of squatting runs. Walker became a director of various companies, was elected to the Legislative Council in 1843, and from 1869 was President of the Bank of New South Wales until the year of his death in 1886. He was conscientious and benevolent and made many personal benefactions to individuals in need. For a time, he even employed an agent to seek out and relieve people in financial distress.
Towards the end of 1857, Thomas had begun construction of a country retreat on his Concord land which he renamed “Yaralla”, said to have been an Aboriginal name for camp or home. The architect responsible was Edmund Thomas Blacket (1817-1883), one of the most prominent of the day and especially remembered for his beautiful Victorian Gothic churches. The design featured a main living area in a two-storey section, incorporating a three-storey Italianate tower in the centre, with a single-storey service wing and conservatory at the rear. Stone for the house was quarried from the eastern side of the estate, and the resulting quarry later became the site of the swimming pool.
During construction of Yaralla, Thomas married Jane Steel Hart (1832-1870) of Woolloomooloo, the daughter of an Irish-born Scottish corn merchant, Thomas Hart. Thomas Walker and Jane Hart were married in 1860 when Thomas was about 56. Their only child, a daughter, Eadith Campbell Walker (1861-1937), was born in Durham Cottage at Millers Point in The Rocks area of Sydney in September of the following year. It has been said that while Yaralla was being built, the Walker family would come for weekends and stay in a five-room cottage which had formerly belonged to the Nicholls family known as Woodbine Cottage.
Yaralla was finally completed in about 1864 and the formal English gardens established. Jane Walker did not live long enough to enjoy her new home and gardens for she died at Yaralla on Boxing Day in 1870. Thomas then bought out his unmarried sister, Joanna Walker, from Scotland to care for his daughter, and take over the domestic responsibilities of the household. It was Joanna who solved her young niece’s loneliness, by adopting a little girl as a friend for Eadith, “Annie” Anne Elizabeth Masefield, who was brought up at Yaralla as a Eadith’s sister. The girls were raised in atmosphere of privilege and affluence with private tutors in subjects including French and music. “Miss Joanna” brought up the girls strictly and apparently instilled such a fear in Eadith that a fortune hunter might try to marry her for money, that she never wed. Nevertheless, Eadith was taught that wealth brought responsibilities and obligations.
In 1882, Eadith, accompanying her ailing father, sailed to North America, Scotland, England and Norway. Four years later and just two weeks before Eadith turned twenty-five, Thomas died at Yaralla on 2 September 1886. His death was said to have made Eadith Australia’s richest heiress at the time. Thomas’ will set aside various amounts for charities, family members and 100,000 pounds for the building and support of the Thomas Walker Convalescent Hospital erected and opened in 1893 on land next to Yaralla.
In the same year Eadith commissioned the architect, John Sulman, to design alterations and additions to Yaralla. Numerous visits to the house saw romance blossom and on 27 April 1893, John Sulman married Eadith’s childhood companion, Anne Masefield.
A new entrance hall was constructed at Yaralla, and large formal dining room fashioned from what was originally an inner courtyard. Over the fireplace in the dining room was the old Scottish Lowland saying “East West, Hame’s Best” reinforcing the sentiment that no matter how far we roam or how exotic our travel, the return home is the best reward. The dining room itself was panelled in Australian timbers and a William and Mary dining suite especially redesigned to fit the room by Franci E. De Groot (1879-1969). De Groot was the famous antique dealer and member of the far-right group, New Guard, who achieved notoriety in 1932 by prematurely cutting the ribbon to open the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Sulman also designed the current stables and coach house and the estate dairy with the alterations and additions completed in 1899. The original gates to the Yaralla Estate were at Concord Road, and a tree-lined driveway of brush box trees extended from the house. In 1919 Eadith sold about 148 acres of her property to an estate agent and an engineer, and the land now forms the present suburb of Concord West.
To Yaralla’s formal gardens Eadith added exotic plants and employed European stonemasons to build a fantastic Edwardian pleasure ground including a sunken garden with a permanent spring of water, and a concrete grotto with orchids, bromeliads, and ferns. An Italianate balustraded terrace was built overlooking the tennis court and summer house covered with Wisteria. Yaralla also had a blue-tiled salt water swimming pool, complete with a wave machine, its own pumping station and an Edwardian bathing house straddling one end. Extensive lawns surrounded the house, punctuated with fountains, statues, urns and sundials. As well as formal gardens there was a bamboo grove, wisteria trellises, a lavender walk, rose garden and a miniature rifle range.
Interested in music and art, Eadith travelled widely and brought back much exotic memorabilia to Yaralla. After visiting Delhi for a magnificent durbar (official reception) to proclaim the coronation of King Edward VII, she set up an Indian room in the main house to display her treasures. These included a plush-lined elephant’s foot, bear and tiger skins, a Persian rug, and a large collection of ivory, brass and pottery objects. The walls of the room were lined with red velvet and encircled with an Indian painting and lattice work. On another occasion she also brought back an entire Norwegian cottage. The authentic log cabin and furnishings arrived in sections, was re-erected below the Yaralla dairy and used for entertaining.
For abut twenty years Yaralla was one of Sydney’s premier residences. Prior to the First World War, it was the venue for grand balls, charitable functions, fetes and children’s parties. The parties were held on a large scale with pantomimes, rides and other entertainment for children. Guests usually arrived in a convoy of decorated launches and upon disembarkation at Yaralla’s wharf on the Parramatta River, were entertained by a band playing on a pontoon nearby. The estate trees would be festooned with Chinese lanterns, the brackets for which can still be seen today in some of the old trees.
Vice-regal and royal visitors were also entertained at Yaralla. During an intergovernmental dispute in 1914 over the function of Admiralty House, the Governor-General, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson and his retinue spent a month as guests at Yaralla. For the 1920 visit of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII), knowing of the Prince’s enthusiasm for squash, Eadith had a private squash court built in Yaralla’s grounds. A coat of arms was specially built over the main gates and a huge marquee with dance floor set up in the grounds for a royal ball.
Despite all these outward demonstrations of extravagance, Eadith perpetuated her father’s philanthropic grants and generously supported the Thomas Waker Convalescent Hospital which he had founded. She also subscribed to many charities and supported religious and educational institutions. However, it was in respect of the First World War that her energies were particularly directed. Working through the Australian Red Cross and later the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, she personally did much for ill and disabled servicemen. Early in 1917 she established a campsite in Yarralla’s grounds for thirty-two tubercular soldiers. Known as “The Camp”, the men were accommodated in tents and the Norwegian Cottage refurbished as a workshop with Eadith paying for the staff with her own funds.
Eadith was appointed a CBE in 1918 and ten years later was elevated to the rank of Dame of the British Empire (the feminine equivalent of a knight) for services to the Red Cross. The last years of Dame Eadith’s life were spent in increasing isolation living in an apartment of the Astor in Macquarie Street, Sydney. She died at Yaralla in 8 October 1937. Half her fortune was bequeathed to her next of kin and the other half to charity. Yaralla and its surrounding estate was purchased by the trustees and given to the State government with a foundation to establish the Dame Eadith Walker Convalescent Hospital. As a result of a ballot, management of the estate was vested in the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
In 1938 the entire contents of the Yaralla Estate were sold at public auction by James R. Lawson and F.E. De Groot. The auction ran over 8 days, comprised 2,851 lots and at the time was largest held in Australia. Yaralla’s antique furniture was said to have been amongst the finest in the country with examples of Jacobean, Queen Anne, Chippendale, Sheraton and Hepplewhite styles. There were also many art works by Australian painters including Conrad Martens, Arthur Streeton and Lionel Lindsay. There were carpets, rugs, statues, books, curtains, radios, a pianola, billiard table, refrigerator and a 1934 Morris-Cowley six-cylinder touring car.
Yaralla operated as a convalescent hospital for male patients from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (R.P.A.H.) who required rehabilitation rather than intensive medical treatment. Despite funds put aside for the support of both hospitals (Thomas’ and Eadith’s), over time these became inadequate and their real value was dramatically reduced by inflation. Similarly, funds left by Dame Eadith for the maintenance and upkeep of the house and garden, originally tended by a team of 24 full-time gardeners, have been eroded away.
Under the watch of the Health Department, Sydney’s finest Edwardian era garden was apparently allowed to disintegrate. In 1972 the Sulman-designed conservatory, Indian room and billiard room were demolished because of their bad state of repair caused by white ants. The Norwegian cottage suffered the same fate, the swimming pool was filled in with bulldozers, the croquet lawn, tennis court, hot houses disappeared, mature trees felled, most of the garden urns were auctioned and the wharf and slipway on the Parramatta River dynamited. However, some of the outbuildings survived including the Prince of Wales’ squash court, the stables and coach house, the estate dairy and the Nicholl’s original home, Woodbine Cottage.
The Dame Eadith Convalescent Hospital closed in the late 1980s and Yaralla’s future was uncertain. In 1992 the Department of Health, who continue to be the estate’s trustees, installed a renal dialysis unit from R.P.A.H. in the historic house. Yaralla also featured in a television commercial for breakfast cereal and appeared in an Australian feature film. Just enough remnants of this amazing estate survive today to provide an inkling of how it may have looked in its halcyon years and fortunately the grounds are accessible to the public but the house is not open.
Major References
Coup, Sheena. “Concord: A Centenary History”. The Council of the Municipality of Concord, NSW, 1983.
Griffiths, G.N. “Some Houses and People of New South Wales”. Ures Smith Pty Ltd, Sydney, 1949.
Knox, Gail, “Parramatta River Walk”. Department of Planning, Sydney, 1989.
Simpson, Margaret, “Old Sydney Buildings: A Social History Vol. 2”. unpublished manuscript.
Photo by Sayaka🌿香香 in Concord Nsw. 专业办理美国加拿大英国澳洲德国韩国日本学历文凭毕业证成绩单,学历学位认证。
留学生归国服务中心
面向美国加拿大英国澳洲德国韩国日本留学生提供以下服务:
一、办理毕业证成绩单(学校原版1:1真制作)
二、使馆认证(留学回国人员证明,大使馆存档可查)
三 、可提供钢印,激凸,烫金,烫银,激光标,水印等防伪工艺
四、Amy教育诚招各地区中介代理,合作共赢!如果您有兴趣,深洋教育欢迎您的加入
———————————————————————————-
如果您是以下情况:
1、未能顺利毕业;
2、挂科多门,拿不到学位证书;
3、论文没过,只有个diploma;
4、留学院校不被教育部认可;
5、留学时间不足;
6、第二国拿第三国文凭;
7、认证材料有缺失;
8、急需国外学历认证书;
9、其他问题。
我们公司都能竭诚为您解决实际问题!
———————————————————————————-
合理推荐业务:
1.如果您只是为了的应付父母亲戚朋友,那么办理一份文凭即可
2.如果您是为了回国找工作,只是进私营企业或者外企,那么办理一份文凭即可,因为私营企业或者外企是不能查询文凭真假的!
3.如果您是要进国企 银行 事业单位 考公务员等就需办理真实教育部学历认证!
———————————————————————————-
招聘代理:本公司诚聘美国、加拿大、英国、新西兰、澳洲、法国、德国、新加坡各地代理人员,如果你有业余时间
有兴趣就请联系我们
校园代理,报酬丰厚。真诚期待您的加盟
One Heart Uniting Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 176 Majors Bay Rd, Concord, NSW.
Sydney Cheil Uniting Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 7 Sydney St, Concord, NSW.
Seven Day Adventist Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 7 Flavelle St, Concord, NSW.
Sydney Cheil Uniting Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 7 Sydney St, Concord, NSW.
Electricity Sub Station No 243, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 1E Broughton St, Concord, NSW.
Electricity Sub Station No 243, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 1E Broughton St, Concord, NSW.
Shops, Burwood Rd, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 6-18 Burwood Rd, Concord, NSW.
St Luke's Anglican Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 17 Burton St, Concord, NSW.
St Mary's Catholic Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 56 Burton St, Concord, NSW.
The Corner Store, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 174 Majors Bay Rd, Concord, NSW.
SDA, Croydon, Sydney, NSW. 7 Flavelle St, Concord, NSW.
St Marks Presbyterian Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 14 Cormiston Ave, Concord, NSW.
Concord Community Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. Corner of Bent and Brewer Streets, Concord, NSW.
One Heart Uniting Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 176 Majors Bay Rd, Concord, NSW.
One Heart Uniting Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 176 Majors Bay Rd, Concord, NSW.
Our Lady of Mercy, Syrian Rite - Catholic Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 102 Burwood Rd, Concord, NSW.
1975 VJ Dodge (Valiant) Ute. Chrysler Australia. 265 Hemi 6, 3 speed column shift manual. Taken at Hen & Chicken Bay Concord NSW, Dame Eadith Walker Estate Concord.
Tags: VJ Valiant Dodge Ute Chrysler Australia
Point Church, Anglican Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 58 Brays Rd, Concord, NSW.
Presbyterian Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 47 Brays Road, Concord, NSW.
Sydney Cheil Uniting Church, Concord, Sydney, NSW. 7 Sydney St, Concord, NSW.
Dame Eadith Walker Estate, Concord NSW OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Dame Eadith Walker Estate, Concord NSW OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA