HISTORY j±rL unu yai aaiLii Sydney centre stage Treasuring trees AUSTRALIAN GARDEN HISTORY SOCIETY Patron Sue Ebury - Countess ofWilton Executive Officer Jackie Courmadias Publication Australian Garden History, t^e official journal of the Australian Garden History Society, is published four times a year Editors Christina Dyson Richard Aitken editor@gardenhistorysociety.org.au 8 Eastern Place, Hawthorn East, Victoria, 3 1 23 Enquiries TollFree 1 800 678 446 Phone 03 9650 5043 Fax 03 9650 8470 Email i nfo@gard en historysociety.org.au Website www.gard e n h i sto r ysoc i ety. org.au Postal Address AGHS, Gate Lodge 1 00 Birdwood Avenue Melbourne Victoria 3004 Subscriptions (GST INCLUSIVE) For I year Single $62 Family $85 Corporate $200 Youth $20 (UNDER 25 YEARS OF AGE) Non-profit organisations $85 Advertising Rates 1/8 page $ 1 32 (2+ issues$l2l each) I /4 page $220 (2+ issues$l98 each) 1/2 page $330 (2+ issues$275 each) Full page $550 (2+ issues$495 each) Inserts $440 for Australia-wide mailing Pro-rata for state-wide mailing Editorial Advisory Committee CONVENOR Christine Reid MEMBERS Glenn Cooke Timothy Hubbard Colleen Morris Prue Slatyer John Viska ISSN 1033-3673 NATIONAL MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE Chair John Dwyer QC Vice-Chair Ray Choate Secretary Sarah Lucas Treasurer Malcolm Paul Elected Members Trisha Dixon John Dwyer Malcolm Paul Sarah Lucas Stuart Read Jan Schapper John Viska Lynne Walker State Representatives Ray Choate SA Nancy Clarke ACT Eleanor Dartnall NSW Pamela jellie VIC Sue Monger WA Ivan Saltmarsh TAS John Taylor QLD BRANCH CONTACTS ACT/Monaro/Riverina Tony Byrne PO Box I 630 Canberra ACT 2601 to ny by r n e@effect. net.au Queensland John Taylor I I joynt St Hamilton QLD 4007 Phone: 07 3862 4284 jht@hotkey.net.au South Australia Ray Choate Barr Smith Library University of Adelaide Adelaide SA 5005 Phone: 08 8303 4064 ray.choate@adelaide.edu.au Southern Highlands Eleanor Dartnall 478 Argyle Street Moss Vale NSW 2577 Phone: 02 4869 1825 eleanor@dartnalladvisors.com.au Sydney & Northern NSW Stuart Read Phone: 02 9873 8554 (w) stuart.read@planning.nsw.gov.au Tasmania Ivan Saltmarsh 125 Channel Rd,TaroonaTAS 7053 Phone: 03 6227 85 1 5 ivanof@bigpond.com Victoria Pamela Jellie 5 Claremont Cres CanterburyVIC3l26 pdjellie@hotmail.com Western Australia Sue Monger 9 Rosser Street CottesloeWA60l I susanmonger@yahoo.com.au Seventeenth century Dutch landscape by Adam Pynacken Boatmen Moored on the Shore of a Lake, c. 1 660. It is not known whether Pynacker had visited this landscape, however most of his paintings portray Italian landscapes. Cover: Sam Leach’s 2010 Wynne Prize winning landscape painting. Proposal for a Landscaped Cosmos (courtesy of the artist). 2 Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam From the editors Christina Dyson and Richard Aitken Our cover features the eontroversial work Proposal for a Landscaped Cosmos by Sam Leaeh, winner of the 2010 Wynne Prize. Awarded annually by the Art Gallery of New South Wales for ‘the best landseape painting of Australian seenery in oils or watereolour’, Leaeh’s luminous, jewel-like eanvas was immediately hailed as a worthy winner. Yet, only days after the award was made, an anonymous e-mail began to hit journalists’ in-boxes pointing out the strong resemblanee between Leaeh’s painting and Boatmen Moored on the Shore of a Lake (z.i 66 o) by Duteh landseape master Adam Pynaeker. Leaeh was unapologetie. Yes, he knew of the Pynaeker, and yes, it had inspired his own work. Indeed, he eonfessed eandidly, he had drawn on the Pynaeker from an image viewed over the internet. Suddenly, as is often the ease with artistie eontroversies, sanetimonious erities eame out of the woodwork. Debate over the award — and by extension, the merits of the painting itself — swirled through the media. Surely appropriation of the Duteh original was not within the spirit of the award } And how eould this be possibly ‘Australian seenery ’ } ‘Gardens’, deelared Humphry Repton, ‘are works of art rather than nature’. And so, it seems, in this debate over what eonstitutes Australian seenery, it might be neeessary to paraphrase Repton’s eredo to read ‘Paintings are works of art, rather than nature’. Links between gardens and art — espeeially gardens and painting — have been strong and sustained. The Picturesque Movement was based in eontroversy between the two; the appropriateness of making gardens in the manner of a picture. From here, it was only a few short deeades until J.C. Loudon eoined the term ‘gardenesque’, to affirm that gardens were worthy of the status aeeorded the sister arts (ineluding painting and seulpture), as human ereations, works of art in their own right and not to be eonfused with imitated nature. So where does Leaeh’s painting fit into garden history.^ Firstly, Leaeh’s ‘Proposal’ disereetly draws our attention to the faet that many so-ealled seventeenth-eentury Duteh landseapes are in faet based on Italian and eertainly non-Duteh seenery. Seeondly, his inelusion of the term ‘Cosmos’ hints at the holistie view of nature propounded by Alexander von Humboldt, whereby politieal boundaries eount for nothing in the realm of nature. In this eontext, we ean see Leaeh’s proposition that Australian seenery is often based on mueh more than just Australian plants. Leaeh seems to be suggesting that European overlays on an Australian eanvas mirror what has happened to our seenery and eulture over almost two hundred and fifty years of European eolonisation. And where would garden design (or opera, or ballet, or many other musieal forms) be without appropriation and adaptation.^ Often we erave the ereator’s work in its original form, but equally, are we not enriehed by ereative interpretations of old masterpieees Here Leaeh also eneapsulates another modern dilemma for history: traditional notions of eopyright are in danger of being left behind. With ever inereasing speeds, the internet will deliver text, images, and sound in a way that eould not have been envisaged when eopyright legislation was enaeted, and eonventional polieing seems a losing battle. We should be grateful to the artist for his riehly eomplex vision. Contents Bellfield and Rossmore: forgotten associations from Thomas Shepherd to Hardy Wilson CAROL LISTON 4 The Romantic ethos (1700-1900) ELIZABETH BARLOW ROGERS 11 The garden at Titanga VAL LANG 12 A stroll through a lost Sydney garden: Cairnsfoot, Arncliffe (1884-1955) JOHN PEARMAN 16 Still on the trail of Edna Walling TRISHA DIXON 21 Profile: Dr Jan Schapper 23 Netscape: Significant landscape features of Orange, NSW 26 For the bookshelf 27 Recently released 28 Jottanda 30 Dialogue 31 Diary dates 32 Notes for members 34 Garden history in the United Kingdom JANET WAYMARK 35 Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 3 Bellfield and Rossmore: forgotten associations from Thomas Shepherd to Hardy Wilson Carol Liston Protection of the colonial gardens and cultural landscapes of Sydney’s Cumberland Plain is an ongoing challenge. Despite few tangible remains, the garden at Bellfield enjoys rich historical associations. In 1995 I presented a paper to the Australian Garden History Society Conference on the historical patterns of settlement in the County of Cumberland and the implications this might have for colonial gardens. In 2000, when Colleen Morris and Geoffrey Britton produced a landmark study on colonial landscapes for the National Trust of Australia (NSW), Colonial Landscapes of the Cumberland Plain and Camden NSW^ the significance of this heritage and the monumental task of its preservation became frighteningly apparent.^ Since their report, protection of the iconic places they identified has been a task of constant vigilance and it is not surprising that lesser known places had little chance to be recorded before they disappeared. Bellfield’s garden was already lost when Morris and Britton produced their report, and on the surface there was nothing to indicate its intricate connection to Australian gardening history. Its location is tantalising — in the centre of the County of Cumberland, between the Gowpasture Road and South Greek, the two north-south routes through the county, and adjacent to Bringelly Road, the east-west link between Liverpool and the Nepean River. Bellfield is a property of local heritage significance near Liverpool, in south-western Sydney. The heritage listing notes that The Bellfield Farm Group is an intact early igth century farm complex strongly vernacular inform and character. The complex retains an early slab building of interest for its simple form and primitive construction and a substantial colonial homestead. ^ The single storey homestead with a verandah on the eastern side, and slab kitchen nearby date from the 1830s, whilst the remnant garden was described as informally laid out with major features of historic and aesthetic interest being mature tree plantings including several large pepper trees near the slab cottage and along the north and south boundaries, an old palm tree, an old oak in the southwest corner and a pomegranate near the slab cottage. ... Various stumps remain throughout the site indicating locations of early trees now removed. ^ These modest descriptions reveal little of a history linked to European settlement in New Zealand, the foundation of commercial nurseries in Sydney, Australia’s first female novelist, and a long-forgotten colonial village. A tale of two sisters Isabella (<:. 1795—1863) and Jane Susan (<:. 1797—1863) were born in Fifeshire, Scotland, the daughters of David and Susan Henderson. They married within two years at the same church in Hackney in London and both women migrated with their husbands in the 1820s. They settled in Sydney and their children intermarried. They died within days of each other in 1863. In a world where the surnames of their husbands defined the family businesses, the identities of these women were easily overlooked, and their close family links forgotten by later generations. Isabella Henderson was the wife of Robert Bell, a little known settler at Bringelly. Jane Henderson was the wife of nursery proprietor and landscape gardener, Thomas Shepherd. 4 Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 Photo: Daphne Kingston The entrance to Bellfield in 1998 Thomas and Jane Shepherd Shepherd was a successful nursery proprietor and landscape gardener well known in London, not only for his nursery but his support for the emigration of agricultural workers and tradesmen. One of the earliest groups to consider systematic emigration was the New Zealand Company, established in 1825 London merchants, ship owners, and members of parliament. Pre-dating the better known schemes inspired by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the first New Zealand Company members included ship owner John Buckle and economist Robert Torrens, who was later involved in the foundation of South Australia and who developed a method of land registration later adopted throughout Australia. The chief employee of the New Zealand Company was Thomas Shepherd who had been ‘brought up in the nursery trade and land surveying’ and was offered a salary of £400 by the directors, later increased to £500. Shepherd and his first wife, Sarah Joslyn (d. c.1820), both came from Kemback, Fife.^ Thomas Shepherd married again in November 1823 St John Hackney, London, and his second wife, Jane Henderson, was also from Fife.^ Shepherd recruited most of the settlers for the New Zealand Company from Fifeshire. The settlers included a marine surveyor, clerks, a surgeon, an interpreter, carpenters, joiners and turners, a blacksmith, stone masons, a wheelwright, baker, shoemaker, and a cooper, a flax dresser, and five ploughmen. Robert Bell, accompanied by his wife and child, was listed with the ploughmen on a salary of £52 los. The Rosanna with its settlers and the Lambton^ store ship, sailed from London in August 1825, reaching the coast of New Zealand in March 1826. After almost a year investigating suitable locations for a settlement, the project was abandoned and the ships sailed to Sydney. The group split, with some families (including the Shepherd and Bell families) remaining in Sydney, a few travelling independently to existing New Zealand settlements, and the rest returning to Britain.^ In London, Thomas Shepherd had known fellow Scot and public servant, Alexander McLeay, then Secretary of the Linnaean Society. McLeay had arrived in Sydney as Colonial Secretary in 1826, and was aware of Shepherd’s skills. Shepherd established the Darling Nursery in inner Sydney and became a significant figure in the development of colonial horticulture and agriculture. His lectures, published in the year of his death, provided a permanent record of his advice and skill. McLeay also supported another gardener, Robert Henderson, who may have been related to the Henderson sisters. Henderson was at the Cape of Good Hope when McLeay passed through on his way to Australia. Perhaps Henderson was awaiting news of the New Zealand venture and then decided to join the adventurers in Sydney. Henderson became McLeay’s gardener and established the grounds of Elizabeth Bay House. In 1831 Robert Henderson, aged 31, married 19-year-old Elizabeth Joslyn Shepherd, daughter of Shepherd’s first wife.^ When Thomas Shepherd died a few years later, the Sydney Herald’^ fulsome obituary of Thomas Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 5 Shepherd was evidence of his impact on colonial horticulture and agriculture, but omitted mention of his family, Henderson was one of the trustees and managed the business until Shepherd’s children were old enough to take over. Henderson then established the Camellia Grove Nursery nearby in Newtown in the 1840s.® Robert Bell of Bellfield Robert Bell was born in Kilconquhar, Fife, Scotland about 1798. He married Isabella Henderson in July 1825 London and a month later they joined Isabella’s sister and her husband in their bold adventure to New Zealand.^ Though Robert Bell was listed as a ploughman on the list of Rosanna settlers, it was intended that he supervise the agriculture of the New Zealand settlement managed by his brother-in-law, for which he would receive a salary of £100 per annum. In New South Wales, Robert Bell quickly found work as agricultural superintendent on the estate of John Thomas Campbell, former secretary to Governor Macquarie. Campbell had received a land grant of 1550 acres in 18 1 1 at the junction of the Nepean River and Bringelly Creek. He developed Shancomore into one of the best farms in the colony. In 1824 Campbell purchased the South Creek estate of Thomas Lay cock junior, known as Cottage Vale, later called The Retreat, and Kelvin. Campbell was a successful farmer and pastoralist, breeding cattle and horses and in 1826 was a member of the NSW Land Board, responsible for assessing the resources of prospective settlers who applied for land grants. Campbell died in 1830. Robert Bell, aged 30, moved to Bringelly, and with Isabella, aged 27, two-year-old James, and six-month-old David, they were listed in the 1828 census in the employ of J.T. Campbell." This work enabled Bell to learn colonial conditions and he invested his funds in 24 head of cattle bred by Hannibal Macarthur. When he applied for a land grant in December 1829, support of Presbyterian clergyman, the Reverend John Dunmore Lang. Lang testified that Bell’s character was ‘unblemished’ and he was a diligent agriculturalist. Bell had £150 in cash and cattle valued at £150, giving him capital of £300. Bell received an order for 320 acres in May 1830, which he selected in country that he already knew — on South Creek, opposite the Laycock grant. Bellfield was located on the eastern side of the upper reach of South Creek, in the Parish of Cabramatta, County of Cumberland, west of Liverpool. A glance at a parish map also shows a series of small allotments between the grant and the main road, now called Bringelly Road, The deeds to the grant were issued in 1838 but Bell was in occupation from about 1830, This was a wild and remote location, with law and order barely maintained by the magistrates at Liverpool and Bringelly. It was a place where bushrangers roamed; assigned convicts were the main workers, and stock theft a constant problem. Parish of Cabramatta, showing Robert Bell’s grant on South Creek, which he received in 1 830, and the reserved land for the village of Cabramatta (adjacent to the southern boundary of Bell's grant). - I JJBL- ■ — - W ■ ijv<' T'r - f jj, -fj u a iTv (f 6 Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 Land and Property Management Authority, Parish Map No. 14070601 (detail). National Library of Austrlaia Robert Bell and the village of Cabramatta Bell had wanted his grant to extend to the Bringelly Road; however, the land along Bringelly Road had already been allocated for the village of Cabramatta. In January 1825 Bathurst had instructed Governor Brisbane to arrange for the survey of the colony into counties, hundreds, and parishes, replacing the existing system of districts. The land was to be valued and land reserved for public purposes such as roads, villages, churches, and schools. Throughout the 1830s and 1840s Bell tried to acquire the designated township land that lay between his southern boundary and Cabramatta (later Bringelly) Road. Bell had no direct access from his farm to the main road, so the village land was crucial for the development of his grant. In March 1832, Robert Bell of Cabramatta applied for a grant of an allotment within Cabramatta village, on the west side of the church allotment in the immediate neighbourhood of his farm. He proposed to build a house, a shop, and an inn to benefit the local community and promote his own ventures but his request was ignored. A few months later in August 1832, giving his address as Thomas Shepherd’s Darling Nursery, Robert Bell applied to purchase the adjoining 120 acres. In June 1833 he applied again for land in the Cabramatta township. The Surveyor General reported that the land was reserved for a town, and there was already a school, a church, and a burial ground. It was not an ideal site for a town, having little water and located on a minor road, but when Governor Gipps considered another application from Bell in 1838, he determined that, as there was so little government land left in the County of Cumberland, the Cabramatta land should not be sold. It was not until 1846 that the Cabramatta village allotments were put up for sale by auction. Bell purchased seven blocks of five acres each in September 1845. The following year he purchased four blocks of five and six acres, and in March 1847 purchased the remaining six acre block. ggp finally owned most of the village, with the exception of the church land and a block purchased in 1846 by Henry Tilson.^^ The garden at Bellfield and ‘The Cabramatta Store’ The strong family connections between the Bell and Shepherd families suggest that a garden would feature at Bellfield. No plans or illustrations survive and recent site works have removed most of the trees. However, a glimpse of the garden can be found in the writing of Mary Therese Vidal, Australia’s first female novelist to publish under her own name. Mary Vidal was the wife of the Reverend Francis Vidal and the sister-in- law of the Reverend George Vidal. Francis was the Anglican clergyman at St Mary Magdalene, South Greek (St Marys) and St Mary the Virgin, Denham Court, Liverpool during the 1840s, and George was variously the clergyman at St Peters, Gampbelltown, St Mary the Virgin, Denham Court, and St Thomas, Mulgoa between 1846 and 1865. iUttt 7 *t 4 f 5 S ‘A < "ri S’.tJi' U. ■4V KTiirui''tt^ Piij 'If] r *■ ft. Ft it hit t T. -wm 'w • - tf . j \ ■'■I- ’-t 1 ' 1 1:1 ^ '• Capstan ATT A if ly Koj,. ft ^ .7 ^ ^ *..4 N. **X,*Uf I BiiJiuii V fr /Vi'.' .‘.v/- 'i , iTf.lfJj !> Mo/ A Bishop’s County of Cumberland in the Colony of NSW, c. 1 860, (detail) showing Bell's grant adjacent to the land reserved for the village of Cabramatta. Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 7 Photo: Carol Liston A surviving remnant of the former Bellfield garden in 2007; the spiky agave was once a feature of the shrubbery. From the early 1830s the slab school at the non- existent village of Gabramatta was used for church services. Initially part of the responsibilities of the Reverend Thomas Hassall at Narellan, from the mid- 1 840s until 1877 it became part of the circuit for the clergyman at St Mary the Virgin, Denham Court. In December 1848, Bishop Broughton laid the foundation stone for Holy Innocents Church at Gabramatta. Designed by Edmund Blacket, it was completed in 1850. Mary Vidal was familiar with Gabramatta and Bellfield. She published her first stories, Tales for the Bush in Sydney in 1844, and then returned to England with her husband in 1846. Her brother-in- law remained in the colony, taking over his brother’s parish at Denham Court and Gabramatta. In 1850 Mary published Cabramatta and W)odleigh Farm in London. One of the stories, ‘The Cabramatta Store’, was set in the undeveloped village of Gabramatta, deep in the Australian bush where respectable free immigrant families struggled to avoid the moral pitfalls of life among convict servants, emancipists, bushrangers, and horse thieves. The fictional respectable family of the district — the Parker family who lived at Yandilla estate adjoining the village — was recognisably the Bell family at Bellfield. The details in ‘The Cabramatta Store’ included descriptions of the bush and everyday life. One of the heroines was a free immigrant domestic servant at Yandilla (Bellfield) so the story included descriptions of servant life in the house and the garden. White cedars formed an avenue to the house. Silver flowered acacias and rich orange trees provided a perfumed atmosphere. The feature plant was the formal aloe with its spiky leaves. In the shrubbery ‘numberless strange but graceful shrubs were tastefully intermingled’. Mr Parker had taken great pains with the laying out of his grounds. It was a very pretty place, as well as a good farm. The shrubbery continued some way and Mr Parker intended to make this the principal entrance, by which means a considerable angle would be cut off in the road to the church and the settlement. The house stood rather in a hollow, and . . . only the roof and chimneys were seen... A few gnarled and twisted apple-trees (so called from the sap which is said to taste like cider) had been spared when their companions were felled and added very much to the beauty of the scene. The single storey homestead had a long verandah on the eastern side covered with a luxurious creeper and the grounds were brilliant with magnificent scarlet geraniums and roses. The large white cedars provided shade for the ladies of the house and their servants to sit and sew. The men’s huts were separated from the house by an orange grove. Grapes were grown and dried in the sun to make fresh raisins. Life in the colony for the Bell family By the mid- 18 30s Bellfield butter was an identifiable product, sold at the Sydney markets at the same premium price as William Howe’s Glenlee butter. Holy Innocents Anglican Church, Rossmore, in May 2010. Designed by Edmund Blackett and completed in 1 850, this church is opposite the entrance to Bellfield and was the location of family weddings and burials. 8 Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 Photo: Carol Liston Photo: Carol Liston Bellfield viewed from Holy Innocents Anglican Church, Rossmore, in May 2010 By July 1832 Robert Bell had two male assigned convicts at Bellfield — a general labourer and a ploughmand^ In 1837 he had six male assigned convict servants working on his Cabramatta property and one ticket of leave man. Mrs Bell, who had six children, had an Irish female assigned servant who was possibly the inspiration for Mary Vidal’s Irish convict washerwoman in ‘The Cabramatta Store’. ^9 By 1838 Robert Bell had 160 head of cattle, valued at £640, eight working bullocks, three brood mares, two working horses, two yearly foals, ten pigs, 400 bushels of wheat in straw, as well as 300 bushels of wheat in storage and farming implements.^® Like his neighbours he found strange horses running in his paddocks, and suffered the theft of some of his horses. By the 1 840s Robert Bell was an established stock breeder. His wealthier neighbours, like Alfred Kennerley at The Retreat, sold him blood stock, such as Young Admiral, from whom Bell bred carriage and cart horses. By 1846 he was breeding race horses from his brown stallion, Augustus. ^3 He probably exported his horses to India, where New South Wales’ horses were in high demand. Bell’s standing in the community was recognised in 1844 and 1848 when Liverpool magistrate Samuel Moore successfully nominated him for the District Council of Liverpool. Though the District Councils were practically defunct, membership had to be approved by the Governor, and Bell was an acceptable choice, joining Thomas Holt junior and Richard Sadlier on the council. In 1854 Jane Susan Bell married her cousin, David Shepherd of the Darling Nursery. The Reverend George Vidal conducted the ceremony at Holy Innocents Church, Cabramatta, adjoining the bride’s home at Bellfield.^3 in 1856, three sons of Thomas Shepherd — Thomas William Shepherd, David Shepherd, and Patrick Lindsay Crawford Shepherd — purchased J.T Campbell’s Mount Philo grant at Rope’s Creek and established a propagation nursery to support their city-based nursery business. They called the estate Chatsworth and David Shepherd was the resident manager. By 1861 Chatsworth was sufficiently established to replace the old Darling Nursery as the main site for the Shepherd Brothers. Covering 1 300 acres, bounded on the east by Eastern Creek and on the west by Rope’s Creek, there were many varieties of orange trees and other fruit trees, plantations of camellias, azaleas, rhododendrons, and acres of vegetables to supply the seed trade. The nursery had stone-lined ponds stocked with perch and other fresh water fish.^^ David Shepherd and his wife Jane {nee Bell) lived at Chatsworth with their seven children from 1857. The estate in the 1860s was regarded as ‘being away from any township and out of reach of religious instruction’, visited occasionally by a clergyman. Mrs David Shepherd held a Sunday school for the local children. Jane Shepherd spent the last years of her life at Ashfield, where she died at her home, Belmont, in August 1886, survived by her husband David.^® Isabella Bell {nee Henderson) died at Bellfield on 3 November 1863 and was buried at Holy Innocents, Rossmore. ^9 Her sister, Jane Shepherd, widow of Thomas Shepherd had died only days earlier on 31 October 1863 at the Darling Nursery. 3 ® Robert Bell died at Bellfield in July 1877, aged 78 and was buried with his wife and near their youngest daughter, Elizabeth who had died unmarried in i860. 3 ^ In 1857 their other daughter Jessie Isabella Bell had married Robert Thomas Jamison, the eldest son of Sir John Jamison of Regentville. Mary Bell Jamison was born the following year. Jessie Jamison died in 1864 and was Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 9 buried with her husband and infant son in the same tomb as Sir John Jamison at St Stephen’s Penrith. Bellfield was left to the eldest son, James, but within a few months James also was dead, becoming ill at Dubbo on a visit to his brother David to discuss the settlement of their father’s estate. David was a stock inspector at Dubbo and inherited the estate. In 1878 David Bell sold Bellfield to Henry Edward Holland. In 1886 Holland sold it to Michael McMahon, who renamed the estate Rossmore. Two years later McMahon sold his property to Ernest Percival Dawborn of Sydney, a land agent, who promptly advertised the subdivision of 1000 acres as the Rossmore Dairy Earms. Priced at £15 per acre, the land had good quality grass, and the soil well suited for fruit trees and vegetables. A 50-acre block included the large homestead, barns, and stables. REFERENCES 1. C. Morris and G. Britton, ‘Colonial Landscapes of the Cumberland Plain and Camden, NSW. A survey of selected pre-1860 cultural landscapes from Wollondilly to Hawkesbury EGAs.’ Typescript report prepared for the National Trust of Australia (NSW), 2000. 2. NSW State Heritage Inventory. 3. NSW State Heritage Inventory. 4. Sarah’s surname is spelt variously Josling / Joslyn / Joslin. Her daughter Elizabeth (b. 1814) had her mother’s surname as her second name, and this was spelt as Joslyn. 5. Marriages St John Hackney, Ancestry.com. 6. H. McDonnell, The Rosanna Settlers: with Captain Herd on the coast of New Zealand 1826-7 including Thomas Shepherd’s Journal and his coastal views. http://www. wcl.govt.nz/heritage/rossannaintro.html. 7. Sydney Herald., 20 June 1831, p. 2; U. Price, My family of Shepherds., Scone NSW, 1988; R. Clough, ‘Robert Henderson’, in R. Aitken & M. Looker (eds), The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens., Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2002. 8. Sydney Herald., 10 September 1835, p. 2; Horticultural Magazine and Gardeners’ Calendar of NSW, No 15, March 1865, p. 68. 9. Marriages St John Hackney, Ancestry.com. 10. Robert Bell, Application for land, 15 December 1829, State Records NRS 907 [2/7799, Reel 1091]. 11. M.R. Sainty and K.A. Johnson, eds, Census of New South Wales November 1828. Sydney 1980, B0926— 9, p. 47. 12. Bathurst to Brisbane, i January 1825, Historical Records of Australia, Series i, Vol. xi, pp. 434 — 44. 13. Packet for PA 7294. 14. Packet for PA 21426. Tilson’s block was later purchased by Noakes, and occupied by his widow and her second husband Watling until 1907, remaining outside Bell’s estate. Bellfield was remembered in a street name in the subdivision. 32 The railway from Sydney to Liverpool was built in i860. A new station opened in 1870 and was named Cabramatta, so the never-developed village 17 kilometres further west was renamed Rossmore. A later generation was inspired by the district’s history, architecture, and gardens. William Hardy Wilson (1881 — 1955) drew attention to the estates of the Cumberland Plain in The Cow Pasture Road (1920) and Old Colonial Architecture in New South Wales and Tasmania (1924). Born in Campbelltown, son of Jessie Shepherd and a great grandson of both Robert and Isabella Bell, and Thomas and Jane Shepherd, Hardy Wilson’s imagination was nurtured from family roots that included Bellfield. 15. M. Vidal, Cabramatta and Woodleigh Farm, pp. 163—4 16. Ibid., pp. 53, 77. 17. Sydney Gazette, 12 April 1838, p. 2. 18. Sydney Gazette, 27 September 1832, p. 2 19. 1837 Muster. 20. Robert Bell, 24 August 1838, State Records NRS 907 [2/7799, Reel 1091] 21. Sydney Herald, 21 August, 1837; 16 March 1840. 22. Sydney Morning Herald, 25 August 1842, p. 4; 23 September 1843, P- 4 - 23. Sydney Morning Herald, 19 September 1846. 24. NSW Government Gazette, 24 May 1844; Moore to Colonial Secretary, 9 May 1848, State Records 4/1162.2 District Councils 1845—60. 25. Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December 1854. 26. Sydney Morning Herald, 21 May 1861, p. 10; V. Crittenden, ‘Thomas Shepherd’, The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens', J. Gelding, Three Sydney Garden Nurseries in the 1860s, Canberra: Mulini Press, 1983, pp. 14—17. 27. Gelding, op.cit., pp. 14—17. 28. Sydney Morning Herald, 30 August 1886. 29. Sydney Morning Herald, 21 November 1863, p. 7. 30. Sydney Morning Herald, 21 November 1863, p. 7. 31. Hobart Mercury, 10 July 1877, p. 3. 32. Sydney Morning Herald, 24 March 1888, p. 16. Historian Carol Liston is Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of Western Sydney. She specialises in the eolonial history of the Cumberland Plain (Greater Western Sydney) and researches its people, places, history, and heritage. She diseovered Bellfield and Rossmore while working on her most recent book. Pictorial History Liverpool and District (2009). 10 Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 The Romantic ethos (1700-1900) Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Romanticism’s impact on landscape design underpins a new exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York — a review will be found in our next issue. Here we list the catalogue essayist’s propositions of the Romantic ethos. The following propositions are intended to state the several, and often contradictory tenets, tendencies, and attributes, that form the complex ethos called Romanticism. Romanticism holds that there is no such thing as self-evident truth discoverable by rational deduction or induction, only personal feeling, which may be shared, yet remains unique to each individual. Romanticism is rooted in the notion that the individual can gain knowledge and understanding through the senses as well as through the mind. Romanticism ranks sentiment above logic. Romanticism forsakes moderation for fervor. Romanticism champions personal religious values over ecclesiastical authority. Romanticism is contemptuous of court life and aristocratic privilege, defending individual rights and the dissolution of the bonds of servitude . Romanticism prizes memory and mood, giving license to nostalgia, affection, and melancholy and adding a new depth of meaning to history, family ties, and death. Romanticism promotes unsophisticated primitivism and the abandonment of social convention. Romanticism is drawn to things rural, common, and aged: the rustic cottage and the old mill, the graveyard beside the country church, and the peasant’s time-honored toil. Romanticism has a penchant for the faraway and the exotic. Romanticism nostalgically cherishes classical antiquity and the Middle Ages . Romanticism values modernity; it embraces the novel and puts faith in civilization’s progress . Romanticism eschews norms in favor of diversity and eclecticism. Romanticism chooses spontaneity as its modus operandi; the sketch, the letter, and the journal entry are its typical modes of expression, often serving as the means of capturing and preserving the emotion of the moment as a future subject. Romanticism prefers nature in its wilder and dramatic guise; the blasted oak, the mountain torrent, the rocky coast, and the snow -crowned peak are its hallmarks. Romanticism celebrates nature’s tranquility and bounty. Romanticism sees the universe as dynamic and organic rather than as mechanistic and foreordained. Romanticism is constant change, a continual becoming rather than a perpetual state of being. Romanticism is transcendental belief; in the face of scientific rationalism, technological innovation, materialism, and secularization, it holds nature divine. Romanticism believes the only valid psychology is that of the individual, that nature is humanity’s benign nurse, best teacher, and artistic muse. In summary, the Romantic ethos is a compound of various and often opposing beliefs and preferences. For all its fluidity and multiplicity of contradictory perspectives, it is characterized first and foremost by a new sense of the meaning of the individual, society, and nature as well as their relationship to one another. Elizabeth Barlow Rogers is a New York-based collector, scholar, educator, author, and parks activist, and president of the Foundation for Landscape Studies. This is an extract from her latest essay in Romantic Gardens: nature, art, and landscape design (see review on page 28). Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 11 The garden at Titanga Val Lang The eucalypt shelter belts, collection of Australian trees, and dryland garden are just some of the features that contribute toTitanga’s national significance. The history of the garden and wider landscape is also personal for its current custodians The Titanga property is a working farm located i6o kilometres west of Melbourne. The Titanga garden began its life about 1872, the year Alexander Buchanan built the Titanga house. Buchanan had been a partner in a property situated near what is now called Lismore. When land became freehold in 1871 he retired from the partnership, taking as his share the western portion. This area he named Titanga. He then built his home — a long, low house designed by Henderson and Davidson of Geelong, and built of locally quarried bluestone with a slate roof — in the natural woodland of banksia, acacia, and casuarina. Buchanan was a bachelor and his sister. Miss Buchanan, came to keep house for him. and soil. The garden was created in an area derived from granite. The surface was reddish light loam for about six inches in depth, then a layer of gravel, and, below that, clay. Surface water in those days was thought to be unsuitable, and rainfall averaged only 2 1 inches a year, so the garden had to be one which could ‘do without’. Undaunted, they made use of the few assets they had. The Titanga homestead garden, of 2.5 acres, began at the side of the house and extended to the rear, thus with no fence and a clear view from the front of the house. A red gravel driveway ran across the front of the house and was extended around a circle of grass, this allowing horses to change direction. The dryland garden Together Buchanan and his sister must have planned a garden suitable for the climate, rainfall. The garden was established as a small formal garden set in an open woodland. The original layout and dryland character of the garden has It was a garden without lawn (shown left and right in these 1 880 s photographs). However in front of the house, outside the garden, the paddock grass was scythed in the vicinity of the house. The choice of plants proved quite successful for such a dryland garden and many of the original trees and shrubs still survive quite happily today with numerous self-sown descendents. 12 Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 been maintained, with gravel paths, hedging, and drought-tolerant trees surviving. From the i 88 os the native woodland has been inter-planted and mainly replaced by a collection of conifers and introduced eucalypts which now form a backdrop to the garden. Paths and flowerbeds were laid out amongst the native trees and red (pottery) Dutch tiles bordered many of the shrubberies and flowerbeds. Many of these tile borders still exist. Watering was limited. An underground tank which collected rainwater from the roof served as the only supply of water for the household until the late 1880S, so used bathwater was run into a well from where it was hand pumped for use in the garden via a 20-gallon tank on wheels. There was of course an orchard. The vegetable garden was a separate enclosure some distance from the homestead and tended with great success by a ‘chinaman’. In the centre of the garden enclosure was a small dairy which contained a milk-cooler and a butter churn. On the eastern side of the dairy was built a fernery, which would receive shade from the dairy wall from the westerly sun and in turn it would shade the dairy from the morning sun when the milk and cream were being attended to. Distant views Unlike so many district graziers, who shut themselves away from their environment and enclosed their houses with a garden reminiscent of their homeland, the Buchanans included the distant view and paddocks in their scheme of things. The house stood on a rise overlooking a plain where, in the distance, could be seen Lake Tooliarook and the extinct volcanoes which abound in the Western District, with Mount Elephant dominating the skyline to the southwest. The house paddock As the house had an uninterrupted view of the front paddocks, Alexander Buchanan improved the outlook with many miles of shelter plantations and put many single trees in the house paddock to give it a park-like appearance. Oral history suggests a connection between some of the Titanga tree plantations and Ferdinand von Mueller, Victoria’s Government Botanist. Mueller is thought to have contributed some seeds for trialling at Titanga, and the entry in the Titanga tree register, entitled ‘Special plantation’, is a possible contender — although this is not confirmed by any explicit evidence. A detailed planting diagram is accompanied by a list of eucalypts and the following instructions. A special plantation of ip chains in length by 2% chains in width to be sown with special varieties of [eucalypt] seed in rows not less than 12 feet apart — 1/ 2 chain on north side to sown broadcast with usual mixture — with a hedge of light wood (2 rows) to be sown with drill. Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 13 Photo: Andrea Rizzi A view fromTitanga to Mount Elephant — faintly visible on the horizon in this early I 870s photograph — looking across the house paddock. 14 Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 Written and photographic records now add to the historic interest of the garden. From the 1 880s the custodians of the house paddock took care to record the tree plantings in the Titanga plantations’ book as well as label each tree with an individual name tag. Alexander Buchanan died in 1882 and his brother Colonel Buchanan inherited Titanga, selling it to John Lang Currie. J.L. Currie had settled at Lara near Darlington in 1844, and now semi-retired, he lived in St Kilda and used Titanga as his country residence. Not much is known of the garden under his ownership, but on his death, it passed to his daughter Henrietta who had married a kinsman, Patrick Sellar Lang. Henrietta and P.S. Lang managed the garden for approximately ten years. By 19 1 1 the garden was being managed by their son, Patrick Henry Lang and his wife Molly (Eleanor Mary nee Ryan). Molly was a talented artist, influenced by her aunt, the flower painter Ellis Rowan. Molly took a keen and active interest in the garden, and enhanced its character. It gave her tremendous pleasure. Whilst Molly managed the garden, her husband turned his attention to the house paddock. He collected different varieties of eucalypts and, at the time of his death in 1947, over 200 different species grew in the house paddock. After the Eirst World War a tennis court was built, replacing the orchard, which had become a garden for birds and possums. The fernery was pulled down and the dairy turned into a playroom, then a maid’s room, a Corgi’s maternity hospital, and now a storage room. In 1938 it was discovered that the water from a nearby dam was suitable for plants so water was laid on and the 20-gallon tank on wheels went into semi-retirement. Molly had a small lawn and lily pond constructed; the rose bed altered to make it more interesting with a circular bed in the middle in which stands a cement garden ornament; and low rosemary and box hedges to border many of the flower beds. Molly and her daughter Henrietta managed the garden until Molly’s death in 1967. Henrietta continued to take great care of the garden until her death in 1990. Henrietta lived with, loved, and cared for the garden for more than 70 years. Chris Eang and myself (Val Eang) have cared for the garden since 1990. Over the years it has had changes but the original design is the same and watering is still limited. Many of the original plants still grow. These include roses and bulbs, rows of quince trees, individual pittosporum, Irish strawberry trees, and a selection of conifers that includes a Himalayan Cypress, a Chinese Weeping Cypress, and a Bunya Bunya at the back gate. Val Lang would like to acknowledge Chris and Andrew Lang’s aunt, Henrietta. Her notes form the basis of this article and her love of her garden was passed on to the current generation of Langs at Titanga. Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 15 A stroll through a lost Sydney garden: Cairnsfoot, Arncliffe (1884-1955) John Pearman Combining historic photographs and family memories, the historic Sydney garden Cairnsfoot at Arncliffe is reconstructed as it appeared during the mid- 1 940s. Tracing the garden at Cairnsfoot Colleen Morris’s recent exhibition and book Lost Gardens of Sydney included an interwar garden at Arncliffe, in suburban Sydney, named Alwyn. As Colleen has noted, Alan Evans — an accountant for Davis Gelatine — and his wife Sylvia Winifred, built Alwyn and lived there between 1927 and 1949. Their modest bungalow residence was surrounded by a prize-winning garden and Evans, who was a keen amateur photographer, has left us with a precious documentary record through his carefully recorded images. As well as his own garden, Alan Evans photographed the staff and gardens of the Davis Gelatine factory in Botany, and entered competitions run by the Australasian Photo Review. I grew up at Arncliffe and so knew this area well. Old Arncliffe was dotted with Victorian mansions in large gardens — Dappeto (ii acres), Wickham (8 acres), Athelstane (5 acres), and Cairnsfoot (5 acres) to name just a few. The residence of Alan and Sylvia Evans, Alwyn, once stood next to Cairnsfoot and you can imagine my delight when I discovered that Evans had taken a wonderful series of photographs of Cairnsfoot during the mid- 1940s. Not only was Alan Evans was a talented photographer, but his photographic legacy is now safeguarded for future generations within the Caroline Simpson Eibrary and Research Collection of the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales. The staff of this library and research collection combines friendly service with professional efficiency which makes research there both delightful and rewarding, and I am indebted to Tracey Gibbons, Penny Gill, and Matthew Stephens for their generous assistance. While Cairnsfoot was not the largest or grandest of the Arncliffe mansions, it is the only one for which we have a photographic record — even though sadly incomplete it is an evocative fragment in the never- ending story of Australian gardens. Using a series of photographs by Alan Evans (and some from an earlier time) I would like to walk you through the garden at Cairnsfoot, home to several generations of the Earleigh family, during the early 1940s — the time of the Second World War. My mother knew both the Evans family of Alwyn and the Earleigh family of Cairnsfoot. The last of the Earleighs to live at Cairnsfoot, Elizabeth and May, were family friends. They went to the same church and worked together raising money for the Red Cross during the Second World War. Apart from these treasured family memories, I have also known the garden at Cairnsfoot since I was a very young boy, although some of my earliest recollections may have dimmed with time, especially the exact names of some of the garden’s plants. The Farleigh family of Cairnsfoot It is thanks to the late Ron Rathbone OAM — teacher, historian, alderman, mayor — that we know much of the history of Cairnsfoot through his researching and recording of the early history of the St George district and especially through his book A Village called Arncliffe{\e)e)f). Rathbone records By comparison with the Evans photographs, this early photograph (c. 1 905) demonstrates that the architectural layout of the garden did not change during the 70 years the Earleighs lived at their Arncliffe residence, Cairnsfoot Here the gardens are planted with annuals. Mass plantings of bedding plants delighted the Victorians though not necessarily their poorly paid gardeners. 16 Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 CairnsTOOt Schooi Archives Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection, Historic Houses Trust of NSW Once inside the gate of Cairnsfoot, the view is dominated by the house which faces east and south. The sunny north-facing wall is windowless. Many windows are shaded by the verandahs. All windows have wooden Venetian blinds reflectinh the Victorian fear of excessive light fading and rotting curtains, carpets, and upholstery. The carriage drive continues westward to the stables and coach house. The carriage loop turns north to the front steps of the house. The drive and circle are separated by a teardrop-shaped bed bordered by stones and planted with candlestick aloes (Aloe arborescens) , yellow lantana, and Agave attenuata.The plants along the southern side of the verandah are (left to right) hydrangeas, sasanqua camellia, a kentia palm, variegated euonymous (Euonymous japonicus). that Edward Manicom Farleigh was born in County Mayo, Ireland, in 1838, the son of a coastguard officer. In 1865, with his wife and two small sons, he migrated to Victoria. In 1873, 1^0 ved to Sydney where Farleigh established the leather firm of E.M. Farleigh Pty Ftd at Mascot. By 1885, the family had increased to ten children the eldest of whom, John Gibson Farleigh, was to become a leading industrialist and a Member of the New South Wales Fegislative Council. Early in 1884, the Farleighs purchased five acres of uneven ground in Foftus Street at the corner of Willington Street, Arncliffe, and erected on the site a fine two-storey Italianate mansion with extensive outbuildings which they named Cairnsfoot. Ron Rathbone notes that Edward’s wife Eliza Farleigh is said to have been delighted withy every feature of the house except the main staircase, which she considered mean and unnecessarily steep for a house of its size. The origin of the name Cairnsfoot is unknown although Arncliffe (meaning ‘eagle cliff’) has many rocky hills which those with Gaelic background call cairns. One such cairn rises up at the north western end of the Farleigh land and Cairnsfoot may simply mean ‘place at the foot of a rocky hill (cairn)’. Perhaps it was named for Cairnsfoot House, Sligo, Ireland, built in the early nineteenth century (and later celebrated in the book The Celtic Twilight (1893/rev. 1902) by W.B. Yeats). Cairnsfoot’s builder, Edward Farleigh, died in 1909, although his wife Eliza lived on there until her death at the age of 98 in 1939. After Farleigh’s death the western half of the estate was sold and a new street — appropriately called Edward Street — was created. There is no known record of this part of the original estate although I suspect that it included paddocks for the horses and a house cow, a poultry run, a garden supplying vegetables and flowers to the house, and perhaps a glasshouse. There were, however dairies, poultry farms, and Chinese market gardens in Arnclifffe at this time, and my speculation may be wide of the mark. Two unmarried sisters, Elizabeth and May, were the last of Edward Manicon Farleighs family to live at Cairnsfoot, the last of the old Arncliffe mansions still being lived in by its original family. In 1955, the last surviving member of the family. Miss Elizabeth Farleigh, died. Shortly afterwards the property was purchased by the Department of Education to be a school for the developmentally delayed. It was opened as the Foftus Street Special School in 1959, and in recent years has been attractively renovated and its old name restored. A tour of the Cairnsfoot garden Despite the great reduction of the garden, photographs and memories allow us to reconstruct its layout and character, and to glimpse the use to which it was put during the Second World War. As previously mentioned, I knew the garden as a lad supplemented by from memories which my mother shared with me. My interest in architecture and gardens stems, in part, from my long friendship with Gowrie Waterhouse of Eryldene at Gordon — Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 17 Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection, Historic Houses Trust of NSW after his death in 1977 I became closely involved with the management of the Eryldene garden. Supplementing my own interest in plants, fellow horticulturists and gardener lovers, Peter Valder and Carmel Quill, assisted in identifying the Cairnsfoot plants in the early photographs. I have also been guided by interviews with Rainsford Farleigh and Beverly Pescott, great grand children of Edward Manicom Earleigh. My mother recalled the last two Earleigh sisters as pleasant women whose company she enjoyed. Elizabeth, confident and capable; May is quieter and more reticent but the enduring qualities of gentleness and warmth. Think of them as being ‘at home’ as we wander through the garden. Imagine arriving at the entrance to Cairnsfoot, with its double gates for carriages (and later cars) and a single gate for pedestrians. Beside the single gate is a large camellia bearing beautiful white flowers in winter. However, if you touch these flowers they quickly turn brown — a fact that has frustrated many a passing thief. Is this one of the reasons camellias fell out of fashion during the early 1900s and were not much grown until championed by Professor E.G. Waterhouse many years later? Behind the fence is a line of pollarded camphor laurels, while peeping over are bamboos and oleanders. The carriage loop lawn is protected by a screen of wormwood, oleanders, and roses. The adjacent lawn has garden beds containing roses, conifers, and occasional plantings of gladioli, zinnias, wallflowers, lupins, and pansies. A pergola is covered in roses. Along the north wall of the house is a large frangipani. Considering the scarcity of gardeners during the war years the garden is well groomed. To the south of the drive is the orchard and vegetable garden. A wooden railing marks the boundary of the ornamental garden. A fruit tree covered in blossom is a China pear; one just starting to flower is a peach. The house cow, Biddy, grazed in the orchard and terrorised the gardener when he was working there. Along the southern edge of the drive are some magnificent fine specimen trees — two large Norfolk Island pines and two American magnolias. During the Second World War lovely gardens all over Sydney were opened to the public to raise money for the Red Cross Society and other charities connected with the war effort such as the soldiers’ comfort funds. Some owners even organised gala garden fetes. I have strong memories of Red Cross fetes in the garden at Cairnsfoot, so I was intrigued that some Evans images showed this aspect of the garden’s use. The war evoked strong memories for the Earleigh sisters — their brother Alfred (known as Ered) had been killed in World War One. The family’s youngest son, Alfred Gordon Earleigh had served as an officer — he was awarded the Military Gross for ‘conspicuous gallantry’ (4—5 March 1918), gassed at Villers-Bretonneux (16 April 1918), and killed by artillery fire at Bray-sur-Somme (22 August 1918). The rocky northern area of the garden is essentially a wild garden with remnants of the original bush — scribbly gums, Sydney red gums. Port Jackson figs. During the war years many Red Cross fundraisers were held in the garden at Cairnsfoot My memory of the Red Cross tumbril’ (actually the old house manure cart from the stables — cleaned up, of course) is hazy but I think it was filled with produce and wheeled by these 'gypsies’ to the nearby shopping centre to attract more sales and visitors. 18 Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 Here we are in the rocky northern end of the garden looking west/south-west. Behind the Red Cross stall is a pergola covered in bower vine (bignonia — Pandorea Jasminoides) leading to more of the wild garden. To its left you see the lattice entrance to that ubiquitous feature of Victorian gardens — ^the fernery with its collection of ferns, palms, orchids, and begonias. At the garden stall during a Red Cross fete in 1 944. The woman in the hat is Sylvia Evans, wife of the photographen and neighbour from Alwyn next door Striking a model’s catwalk pose she displays with pride her patriotic purchases, but where are all the customers? There must have been many because considerable sums were donated to the Red Cross. Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 19 Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection, Historic Houses Trust of NSW Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection, Historic Houses Trust of NSW Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection, Historic Houses Trust of NSW Here we see the carriage loop lawn from the high, rocky ground at the northern end of the garden. In the background (behind the fence) is a line of pollarded camphor laurels which extend along the entire Loftus Street frontage. In the middle ground is a garden of clipped azaleas, cannas, and agapanthus. In the foreground are palms, cordylines, a yucca, echeverias ('Imbricata’), and other succulents. The succulents favoured by water-wise gardeners today were common in Victorian gardens. I do not known the purpose of the wire fence but suspect it was for growing sweet peas, a Victorian favourite. together with brush box, pines, and succulents. Here is the most spectacular planting in the garden — a large grove of the century plant {^Agave americand) in the north-eastern corner. Perched on its rocky plinth, its sculptural form and fleshy yellow striped leaves make it a stand-out specimen. Despite its common name it flowers once every lo to 15 years, the showy inflorescence shooting skyward to a great height, although after flowering the plant dies but is replaced by new growths from the base. Finally we’ll walk in our mind down the carriageway to the front verandah for refreshments and farewells until our next magical mystery tour of a lost garden. I encourage you to use the Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection, which has many of its collections on-line. And for those of you curious about Sylvia Evans, neighbour of the Farleighs, look out for her book. Tail Up: the story of ‘Manna’, personality dog (privately published from her home in Arncliffe in 1944) in which — so she tells us — ‘The people, dogs, other animals and birds and the incidents chronicled in this book, are in the main, authentic’. Acknowledgments In addition to those people mentioned throughout this article, thank you also to Kirsten Broderick (Rockdale) and Niall Pettit-Yung (Hurstville), local history librarians; Lesley Bruce, Principal, Cairnsfoot School; and Gloria Henke, St George Historical Society. The photographs taken by Alan Evans between 1943 and 1947 are now held by the Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, and those illustrated are reproduced here with permission. Information on A.G. ‘Fred’ Farleigh is available online from the Australian War Memorial . John Pearman is a retired academic. He lives in an environmental teaching house at Gordon, on Sydney’s North Shore, which many students visit to explore the concept of sustainability. This article was based on a recent illustrated presentation for the Sydney and Northern NSW branch of the AGHS. 20 Australian Garden History V0I.22 No.i July/August/September 2010 Still on the trail of Edna Walling Trisha Dixon The two recent AGHS tours of Edna Walling gardens have given rise to reflection on Walling’s place in the history of an Australian gardening ethos. It seems I have been in the footsteps of Edna Walling for some considerable time and the two recent AGHS tours looking at Walling’s gardens brought to light more interesting information, more people that knew her, more stories, and another layer of knowledge and appreciation, reinforcing my respect for her indefinable skills, her talent, her understatement, and her understanding of our dry continent. On our tours we had an AGHS member who had lived in Edna Walling’s first house in Bickleigh Vale — Sonning as well as another member who lives in her last house, Bendles, in Buderim, Queensland. We met people who had worked alongside Walling, had employed her, and had met her — each with stories to relate. Walking in Edna Walling’s footsteps has taken me on some interesting trails — on a bicycle ride up Big Hill near Eorne, on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, to the ruin of a house and garden she built overlooking the southern ocean; to a garden in Tasmania that had been subdivided into many gardens, with one of Walling’s classic pergolas straddling two gardens; to Buderim where there are still remnants of her last gardens; along the winding roads of the Amalfi looking for the Capuchin convent with the pergola that inspired her famed one at Boortkoi; and to southern England to find the village of Bickleigh that inspired her own village at Mooroolbark. This turned out to be quite elusive. Travelling around southern England with Anne Eatreille and Jackie Courmadias in 1997, we three spent our days traipsing around the countryside. We ended up in the maze that tumbles down the hill at Glendurgan on the Cornwall coast, admired the Henry Moore sculpture above the jousting lawn at Dartington Hall, and saw the stimulus for Edna Walling’s early designs in Gertrude Jekyll’s Hestercombe. As we all had an interest in Edna Walling we thought we would look out the village of Bickleigh, knowing it to be in that part of the world near where Edna Walling was born in 1895. Our visit was disappointing — an unattractive town with a strong military presence — one thatched roofed cottage and little to recommend it. Time had wreaked its change — or so I thought. Perchance that Christmas, I received in the mail, an intriguing tiny manila envelope with Richard Aitken’s trademark handwriting: ‘wish you were here, love from Edna’ and inside six small SIX SIX Beautiful Snaps of Bickleigh Cottage Guest House Published by W, G. COCHRANE Cottije Cwa H