Babworth House is a heritage-listed former residence and school and now staff accommodation at 103 Darling Point Road, Darling Point, Sydney, Australia. It was designed in various stages by Mortimer Lewis, Edmund Blacket, and Morrow and De Putron and built from 1912 to 1915 by Messrs W. Gawne and Son. It is also known as Mount Adelaide. The property is privately owned. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 13 August 1999.
History Early colonial history Originally known by its Aboriginal name Yarranabbee, this suburb on the south side of Sydney Harbour was called Mrs Darling's Point in honour of his wife by Ralph Darling, the Colonial Governor of New South Wales from 1825 to 1831. At that time, the area was heavily timbered; however, after New South Head Road was built in 1831, timber cutters felled many of the trees, and the land was subdivided. Most of the plots, covering in this area, were taken up between 1833 and 1838. The "Mrs" was lost from the name and the suburb and point became Darling Point.
In 1833, "Villa allotments" were advertised for sale at 'Mrs Darling's Point'. The land was auctioned on 11 October and the largest allotment No. 10, on the eastern side of the point was purchased by William Macdonald, an emancipist who was transported for life for forgery. Macdonald had become a successful businessman and entrepreneur, dealing in general hardware. Macdonald named his purchase Mount Adelaide and spent considerable amounts of money on it, although no residence had been built by the time he put it up for sale in 1837.
In the 1830s (1833–37), Macdonald was responsible for a considerable amount of landscaping including the planting of a vineyard on the Mount Adelaide estate, part of which is the site of what is now Wiston Gardens, including numbers 4 and 6. The vineyard was reputedly designed by Thomas Shepherd, the first nurseryman and landscape designer in the colony. The Mount Adelaide Estate was extensively sub-divided between the time Macdonald departed for England in 1837 and the turn of the century.
Thomas Shepherd Thomas Shepherd (–1835), a landscape gardener and nursery proprietor, was NSW's first nurseryman, the first early writer and teacher on landscape design in the colony, and one of the main proponents of vine cultivation in this period. His father was Principal Gardener to the Earl of Crawford and Lindesay at his property Struthers, where the young Thomas received his earliest horticultural education. He then trained in all aspects of landscape gardening and worked for the practice of Thomas White before setting himself up as a practising landscape gardener in both Scotland and England. In his English work he came in contact with Humphry Repton, a noted landscape gardener, and in his writing criticised some of Repton's methods. Shepherd eventually established a nursery at Hackney to support his business. Widowed () and then remarried (1823) and faced with an unprofitable landscape and nursery business in the period after 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, he took a position with the New Zealand company. As Principal Superintendent he was charged with establishment of a colony on Stewart Island, New Zealand, with the intention of cultivating flax (Phormium tenax).
With a band of colonists, mainly Scots, he sailed in 1825 with his new wife Jane Sarah (née Henderson) and young family for the South Pacific. Unsuccessful in finding a suitable place for a settlement either in Stewart Island or the rest of New Zealand, they arrived in Sydney in early 1827. With encouragement from Governor Darling, he established the first commercial nursery garden in Australia near Grose Farm (1827) (today's suburb of Chippendale/Darlington, and adjacent to what is now the University of Sydney and Victoria Park). He named his nursery the Darling Nursery in honour of his patron. Progress was difficult because of the unprepared nature of the land allocated and he began with a vegetable garden. This was gradually expanded into the Darling Nursery with help of stock from Sydney Botanic Gardens, as well as from Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay at Elizabeth Bay House and his son William Macarthur at Camden Park. Little is known of his landscaping work but, having established himself in the colony, Shepherd gave two sets of lectures at Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts during 1834–35, for which (in their published form) he is now chiefly remembered.
Shepherd's first published writings were on viticulture (1831) and he was an early supporter of James Busby, a viticultural promoter, educator, and patron. Shepherd's "Lectures on the Horticulture of New South Wales" (1835) addressed practical matters, such as the growing of vegetables in a colony with a different climate and soils to those of Britain and complete turnabout of the seasons. The vital need for water in hot Sydney summers was also stressed in this, Australia's first garden book. 'Lectures on Landscape Gardening in Australia (1836) of which only the first was able to be delivered due to Shepherd's death, was the first Australian book to address garden design, and preceded by five years the first major North American text on landscape gardening by Andrew Jackson Downing. At first sight conservative in their aesthetics, the lectures drew rhetorically on the Brownian tradition of the English landscape garden, albeit tempered by local circumstance and contemporary thought. Shepherd deplored the indiscriminate destruction of timber and instead advocated selective thinning and tasteful arrangement and disposition of exotic trees to create "pleasing effects (and) ...improved scenery". He addressed a range of garden styles – Sublime, Picturesque, and Beautiful – an inclusive approach in a colony of only modest population. His advice on education for young gardeners had strong overtones of publisher and writer, John Claudius Loudon, and many of the later lectures borrowed from his writings.
William McDonald's Mount Adelaide estate (1833–37) is the only known landscape design that can confidently be attributed to Thomas Shepherd – a terraced vineyard at Double Bay overlooking an ornamental fishpond with Sydney Harbour as a backdrop.
Mount Adelaide estate The site has identified archaeological potential for relics associated with the significant 1830s vineyard prior to its subdivision and construction of both Lewis' 1838+ house and subsequent additions, its demolition and construction of Babworth House between 1912 and 1915. The estate (and its subdivisions, such as 4 & 6 Wiston Gardens to the east and downhill) are significant for their association with Shepherd and through hims with contemporary theories of aesthetics in landscaping and picturesque design and to demonstrate aspects of the cultivation of the vine and the design, layout and construction of a vineyard of the 1830s. The potential for substantive remains is limited as a result of the major changes to the site of the vineyard through subdivision and housing construction. Building and garden making by Lewis and later the Hordern family may have removed much of the potential archaeological remains of Mt. Adelaide's landscaping (e.g. vineyard terraces and fishpond) from the 1830s.Stuart Read, pers.comm., 12/8/09
A major purchaser of Macdonald's land was Mortimer Lewis, the Colonial Architect. Lewis constructed a house on the northernmost edge of the Mount Adelaide estate taking advantage of views of the harbour. The main feature of Lewis' simple but elegant design was the semicircular bay window of the drawing room, a feature of Lewis' other work at Fernhill, Mulgoa and Richmond Villa. Burdened with mortgage commitments in the difficult financial conditions of the depression of the 1840s, Lewis filed his Insolvency Schedule in November 1849.
In 1849, John Croft, a businessman and partner with T. W. Smith in the firm of Smith, Croft & Co. purchased Mount Adelaide. By 1857 when the house was again up for sale, it had not only been finished but apparently enlarged and changes made to the outbuildings. Henry Mort purchased Mount Adelaide in 1858. After years of living in Mount Adelaide House and coping with its limited facilities, it was only as his family was diminishing in size that Henry decided to make substantial additions to the house. These were designed by Edmund Blacket (now in practice with his son Cyril as Blacket & Son) who had first made the house habitable after it had been left unfinished by Mortimer Lewis. Due to financial problems in September 1893 Mort transferred his Mount Adelaide property to his daughter Eliza and his eldest son Henry Wallace Mort. From 1893 to 1910 Mount Adelaide house was let and the grounds were gradually reduced by subdivision.
Hordern family
Anthony (1788–1869) and Ann (1791–1871) Hordern established the retailing dynasty Anthony Hordern & Sons in 1823 and became very wealthy. They, and their descendants, owned and built many large, important heritage listed properties in Sydney and the NSW Southern Highlands.
In 1910, their great-grandson Sir Samuel Hordern (1879–1956) purchased Mount Adelaide and demolished the old house. Between 1912–1915 he built a grand 2 storey home, "Babworth House", designed by architectural firm Morrow and De Putron.
A brief description in the Sydney Morning Herald gave some idea about the character of the new house: 'The building, which will contain about 40 rooms including a magnificent billiard room will be finished with the most up-to-date appointments and all the latest labour saving devices. The furnishings throughout will be of the richest character. The joiner's work will be in English oak, cedar and Queensland maple, highly polished. The plaster enrichments will be on a lavish scale and everything will be worked pout in special details. The design throughout will be in modern Renaissance, and when complete the building should be one of the finest residences in Sydney.'
The estimated cost of the work was from A£30,00040,000. The house was on a grand scale with high quality finishes. It appears that it was not until 1915 that Samuel Hordern and his family took up residence in their new home, called Babworth House. Its style and location were sure marks of a class of commercial entrepreneurs which had established itself as part of the Sydney social elite.
The Hordern family, descendants of Anthony (1788–1869) and Ann Hordern, who established a Sydney retailing dynasty exemplified by Anthony Hordern & Sons Palace Emporium, created many celebrated gardens around their residences. One of Anthony Hordern's sons was Samuel Hordern (1849–1909). His eldest son, (Sir) Samuel Hordern (1879–1956) acquired Mount Adelaide on the Darling Point ridge and created a vast new residence and landscaped setting in an Arts and Crafts style (): formal stairways descended from the porte cochere to sunken gardens and grottoes distinguished by an important botanic collection. Known as Babworth House, this great estate was designed by the architectural firm of Morrow and De Putron, which also designed nearby Hopewood House (1914) for his brother Lebbeus. Sir Samuel also resided at Retford Park, Bowral; Lady Hordern took a keen interest in both gardens. The site was graded to form a series of garden platforms and enclosures descending to a rose garden, herbaceous border, and oak glade under-planted with bluebells.