Stuart Read
Telephone: 9873 8554 bh. 9326 9468 ah.
stuart1962@bigpond.com ah, or
stuart.read@planning.nsw.gov.au bh
Chair:
Stuart Read
Vice-Chair:
Murray Hook
Secretary:
Helen Bryant
Treasurer:
Peter Cousens
Committee:
Rosemary Potts
Jeanne Villani
Malcolm Wilson
Welcome to the Sydney and Northern New South Wales Branch page. With around 300 members we are the second largest branch, centred in and around Sydney with many members in the Blue Mountains, Central West and Northern regions of NSW. Since November 2005 we have a New England Sub-Branch which is actively organising events in the state's north - a very distinctive part of Australia with four clear seasons, rich soils and (usually) good rains - not bad ingredients for gardening... To contact them email the Chairman, Sir Owen Croft, at: ogs.croft@bigpond.com.
November
Date: 16th November 11.30pm - 4pm
Event: Self drive tour to Harpers Mansion at Berrima and Wirrimbirra Nature Reserve at Bargo
Venue: Meet at Harpers Mansion, 9 Wilkinson Street, Berrima
Cost: Members: $25 Guests: $30 includes afternoon tea.
Bookings essential.
December
Date: 14th December 4.30pm - 8pm
Event: Christmas Party in Dural
Venue: Member Jo Hambrett’s home Yanderra at 7 Davey Road, Dural. (nearest cross street is Derriwong Road). Members are lucky to have the chance to enjoy our Christmas party in the lovely garden of Jo Hambrett, Yanderra, in Dural. A deep, rectangular block in a bush setting of towering turpentine trees, it provides a gracious setting for a 1980s Phillip Cox glass & timber house nestled in flowing beds of colour-coordinated plants. Out the back are sandstone terraces with lavender and cherry guava and a new peripheral walk to the highest point with a good view back. A feature is a range of species and forms of Phebalium, with delightful lemon, sulphur and cream flower heads. Others are a recent vegetable garden, hedges of lily pillies, Banksia roses, rainforest species, silvery cassias and autumn-colouring tupelos and Manchurian pears. Jo says, in her view “…the Australian Natural Garden Style, the bush garden if you like, is a modern vernacular garden developed in response to the landscape and the needs of a community, in the tradition of all vernacular styles.” Come and enjoy some end of year sanity and breath-catching with other AGHS members.
Cost: Members $15 Guests $20. Bookings essential.
Bookings & enquiries for all events above: Telephone: Stuart Read: 9326 9468 (ah), email: stuart1962@bigpond.com.au or Jeanne Villani: 9997 5995 Email: Jeanne@Villani.com.
PLEASE NOTE: Payments for all events can be made by cheque to Australian Garden History Society and mailed to: Peter Cousens, 93 Lennox Street, Newtown, NSW, 2042 or by bank transfer to: Australian Garden History Society Sydney & Northern NSW Branch, ANZ Bank, Centrepoint Branch. BSB 012 040 Account 1017 62565 Payment must include name and function.
Open until 30th November: Lost Gardens of Sydney exhibition, Museum of Sydney, cnr. Bridge & Phillip Streets, City, 9.30am-5pm daily, entry $15/10 members, more info at www.hht.net.au/whats.on/exhibitions
*5th October: Lost Gardens of Sydney walking tour: The Domain, Sydney - with Flora Deverall, 2-4pm. Price: $25/$20 includes light refreshments.
12th October: Dave Gray - Lost Gardens of Sydney floor talk on Glenfield Farm garden, 2pm, free with entry.
*21st October: Lost Gardens rare collection tour. A curator-led presentation of rare books and other material relating to the history of garden design and gardening from the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection. See treasures from the Richard Clough Collection and garden plans from the Claude Crowe archive. 6-8pm at HHT Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection at The Mint, 10 Macquarie Street, Sydney. Price: $30/ $25.
26th October: Flora Deverall - Lost Gardens of Sydney floor talk – Sydney’s great lost garden, 2pm, free with entry.
*9th November: Lost Gardens of Sydney walking tour: Elizabeth Bay - with Scott Hill, Assistant Curator of Elizabeth Bay & Vaucluse Houses and Stuart Read, 2- 4pm. Price: $25/$20 includes light refreshments.
9th November: Christa Ludlow - Lost Gardens of Sydney floor talk – Interwar and Arts & Crafts gardens including Rippon Grange, Wahroonga. 2pm free with entry.
16th November: Roslyn Burge - Lost Gardens of Sydney floor talk – Callan Park/Rozelle Hospital gardens, 2pm, free with entry.
22nd November: Stuart Read - Lost Gardens of Sydney floor talk – Regentville, Mulgoa’s vineyard terraces; Purulia Wahroonga’s garden, 2pm, free with entry.
* bookings essential. Bookings for all HHT events: Tel: 02 8239 2211 or book online: bookings@hht.net.au
26th October: Yaralla Estate Open Day, Nullawarra Ave/The Drive, Concord, 10-4pm;. www.concordheritage.asn.au/chs-open-days.htm.
27th October - 17th November – Flora Deverall leads Spring walks in parks & gardens, includes Lost Gardens of Sydney exhibition, Palace Garden, Macleay Museum, University of Sydney campus walk, Elizabeth Bay House garden, McKell Park, Darling Point and a walk from Taronga Park Zoo to Clifton Gardens, 4 meetings, 10am-12noon, Mondays from 27/10/8, $110, book via WEA Sydney ph 9264 2781, www.weasydney.nsw.edu.au.
Spring’s here with warmer days between chills. Members will have noticed the now quarterly journal with much more content: bravo! Sadly there’s one less per year, but plenty of meat to enjoy meantime.
Sydney members will hopefully have had a chance to visit the exciting exhibition ‘Lost Gardens of Sydney’ at the Museum of Sydney. If not, visit! It’s on until 30th November and is a major overview of garden history in the Emerald City’s heart – calling for greater appreciation of our current gardens and less future demolition and wistful ‘what if’ longing once they’re gone. Regional members may wish to plan a trip – it’s well worth it and needs time to absorb. There are plenty of AGHS/HHT joint events to stretch the show and book’s focus: check Branch Cuttings #27 ‘Other Events’ pages and www.hht.net.au/whats_on (make sure to look at all of: talks / walks / tours)...
In June New England members held a garden recording workshop at the University in Armidale - work continues on identifying historic gardens in the region and planning garden visits for a tour in autumn 2009 and the AGHS conference in 2013; AGHS gave a talk to the Randwick Library Garden Group; and Judy Horton (from Yates Seeds) gave a entertaining talk on our evolving back yards – highlighting how much has changed, from subsistence to ‘aspirational lifestyle’ space and now, perhaps back to food growing. She also highlighted the rich archive Yates has, from the 1890s on. Branch Cuttings #27 has a report on Judy’s talk by member Joan Lawrence.
In July Sydney members enjoyed a fascinating walk around the almost garden-free Pyrmont Point – part of inner Sydney that has changed from bush to farm to heavy industry and now to high density housing. New pocket parks with industrial heritage relics, interpretation and some creative artworks are being made which are both welcome and impressive. One is a major waterfront park on the site of the former Water Police HQ – currently under construction and, when complete, extending existing continuous harbour-front public walkways from the City’s western side at Cockle Bay to Darling Harbour around Pyrmont Point into Elizabeth Bay, Pyrmont. Well worth a visit.
In August Matthew Taylor gave an impressive overview of post-1950s landscape design worldwide brushing us up on terms like ‘post-modernism’ and leading designers such as Roberto Burle-Marx, Thomas Church and Le Corbusier. This attracted a number of landscape architects who I hope may join AGHS. Also that month were ‘Lost Gardens’ add-on events: a walk around our 2 oldest public square and park – 1810’s Macquarie Place & Hyde Park, and re-imagining the 1879 Sydney International Exhibition’s vast Garden Palace which burnt down in 1882 and was ‘re-landscaped’ as The Palace Garden. The exhibition launch drew a huge crowd: a members’ exclusive curator-led exhibition viewing was booked out, as were two bus tours to the scenic Mulgoa Valley, Penrith looking at gardens ranging from c.1811 to the 1870s, 1890s and a 1960s modernist icon, the Lewers Bequest & Penrith Regional Gallery, testament to the vision of artists Margo & Gerald Lewers. Notable on both visits there were chartreuse (later Mandarin-red) bracts on Holmskioldea sanguinea, Chinaman’s hat plant matching the chartreuse-painted verandah eaves and a rich purple Yucca sp. I’ve never seen…
A major plus for Sydney members was a September talk by visiting biologist Dr Rudolf Thomann on the natural wonders and gardens of Chile. A country with ancient tectonic, floral and faunal ties to Australia via supercontinent Gondwanaland, Chile was in the colonial era a stopping point for ships rounding Cape Horn and visiting the port of Valparaiso. Plants we share come from the families Fagaceae (beeches: Nothofagus spp.); Proteaceae (eg: waratahs, Chilean fire bush (Embothrium), Qld. waratah (Alloxylon / Oreocallis), conifers (Araucaria spp.) and many more. Australian gardens have long prized Chilean plants like strawberries, potatoes, tomatoes, Fuchsia, Alstroemeria, Puya and the giant-leaved Gunnera. Australia returned the compliment with vast eucalypt plantations and Acacia dealbata wildly seeding up Chilean river beds. Viva Chile y muchas gracias a AGHS miembros y organisadoros extraordinarios, Eleanor Herriott y John Lee y Warwick Forge. Rudolf will also speak in Mount Wilson, Canberra and Melbourne – lucky places! Warwick is organising a tour of Chilean and Brazilian gardens including Juan Grimm’s and Roberto Burle Marx’s in 2009: delicious prospect!
Some ‘trivia Chilena’: those keen on deciduous and evergreen Chilean Nothofagus spp. should visit both the 1980s+ Mt.Tomah Botanic Gardens in the Blue Mountains (in autumn) and the 1990s+ Tasmanian Arboretum at Eugenana south of Devonport – both have ‘Gondwana’ collections, the latter with other plants (Clethra arborea, etc.), thriving in cool, moist ecotones. Sydney’s Botanic Gardens has a good collection of bromeliads near the Macquarie Wall including some huge clumps of Puya spp.
Advocacy continues: letters were sent on Yarranabbe Park, Darling Point’s Hills fig trees v residents’ harbour views; school development plans and a site management plan for Yasmar, Parramatta Road, Haberfield; the possible heritage listing of Macquarie University’s 1960s+ landscaped grounds by Ryde City Council. The New England sub-branch is liaising with Armidale/Dumaresq Council about protection of remnant hawthorn hedging outside Armidale – once axiomatic, now alas under threat.
After public lobbying during the recent planning reforms, a Commission of Inquiry into NSW’s planning system is underway with submissions due by December 2008, hearings and a report out by the end of 2009. The branch will make a submission but members may wish to do so themselves too. More info is at www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/statedevelopment or by email state.development@parliament.nsw.gov.au.
A recent listing on the NSW Heritage Register is the Seidler residence in Killara, home to architects Harry (deceased) and Penelope Seidler and an icon of Sydney School modernism – not just its dramatic concrete house but its sloping bushland site, enhanced by ‘Sydney School’ landscape architect Bruce McKenzie, who at one time shared North Sydney office space with the Seidler practice. More info is at www.heritage.nsw.gov.au/07_subnav_02_2.cfm?itemid=5049861.
Also newly listed is Loggan Rock, one of three 'organic' houses designed and built by Alexander Stewart Jolly at Avalon retaining the integrity of their unique garden / landscape settings (the others are 'Careel House' and 'Hy-Brasil'). Loggan Rock, its surroundings and landscape context are rare and outstanding examples of architecture in harmony with nature. All 3 residences were gathering places of many others associated with the vibrant arts community of Avalon that emerged after World War I and flourished for the next four decades. More info is at www.heritage.nsw.gov.au/07_subnav_01_2.cfm?itemid=5050058.
Apart from the wonderful ‘Lost Gardens of Sydney’ exhibition catalogue by Colleen Morris (a must-have and ideal gift) another recent book I commend members is ‘The Writings of Walter Burley Griffin’ edited by his grand-nephew Dustin, Professor of English at New York University. This is a magnum opus reference on this well-before-his-time landscape architect, architect, visionary planner and thinker. It pulls together a range of texts on Canberra, town & campus planning, residential communities, houses, landscape architecture, India, architecture and politics. To buy a copy contact Cambridge University Press via www.cambridge.org.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Peter Watts for his long and exemplary leadership, both of the Historic Houses Trust (HHT) of NSW (he retires this month) and of the Australian Garden History Society. Peter was instrumental in setting up and guiding the Society at its very beginning and at key stages since. His sage advice has set directions and his quiet organising skills have guided many, often almost un-noticed. Perhaps it is the Western Victorian ‘grooming’ from those impressive country women, but Peter’s calm, focussed and diplomatic style has borne much fruit. Members can thank him when they enjoy Colleen Morris’ exhibition ‘Lost Gardens of Sydney’ at a key HHT venue or delve into the rich garden history collection in the Caroline Simpson Research Collection and Library at another HHT venue, The Mint. It seems very fitting that this exhibition is on view now. Enjoy the change, a well earned rest and whatever comes next, Peter!
And good news about two key appointments: Kate Clark will be the new Director of HHT – an Australian with long and wide experience working with English Heritage and the Heritage Lotteries Fund (of projects over 200,000 UK pounds, including major historic parks upgrades) there; and John Neish, recently appointed to manage the National Trust (NSW) and formerly General Manager of Parramatta City Council at a formative time in that city’s growth when heritage was highlighted along with urban design improvements. Both bode well: two strategic brains and strong skill sets in vital positions: a warm welcome to both.
