Vaucluse House is a heritage-listed residence, colonial farm and country estate and now tourist attraction, house museum and public park, formerly the home of statesman William Charles Wentworth and his family. It is located at 69a Wentworth Road, Vaucluse in the Municipality of Woollahra local government area of New South Wales, Australia. Completed between 1803 and 1839 in the Gothic Revival style, its design was attributed to W. C. Wentworth and built by Sir Henry Browne Hayes and W. C. Wentworth. The property is owned by Museums of History NSW, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. The site was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
Vaucluse House is a 19th-century estate with house, kitchen wing, stables and outbuildings, surrounded by of formal gardens and grounds located on the south-eastern shores of Port Jackson. The house is one of the few 19th-century houses near Sydney Harbour retaining a significant part of its original setting.
History The Vaucluse Estate, located on Cadigal land, comprises the land granted to Thomas Laycock in 1793, being ; granted to Robert Cardell in 1795; granted to Francis MacGlynn; and granted to William Wentworth. In 1803, the Irish convict Sir Henry Browne Hayes purchased Laycock's grant and a grant adjacent to it. Hayes erected a cottage and other buildings. He named the property Vaucluse, probably after the Italian poet Petrarch's Fontaine-de-Vaucluse near Avignon, France. Vaucluse was leased until 1814. It was left vacant after this except for a year's rental to Captain John Piper in 1814.
The original Vaucluse House was built by Sir Henry Brown Hayes, who had been transported to New South Wales in 1802 for kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy Irish banker. Governor King considered Hayes "a restless, troublesome character" and was keen to move him away from Sydney. So in 1803 Hayes was granted permission to purchase the land and house, which was originally granted to Thomas Laycock in 1793 and Robert Cardell in 1795. An avid admirer of the 14th-century poet Petrarch, Hayes named the house after Petrarch's Fontaine de Vaucluse, the famous spring near the town l'Isle sur la Sorgue in what is today the Department of Vaucluse in the South of France. He built a small but charming cottage and several outbuildings. were cleared for agriculture and several thousand fruit trees were planted, none of which survive. Newspaper accounts describe it as a small but very charming farm. There is some warrant for the story that Hayes surrounded his property with turf from Ireland to keep out the snakes. In 1812 Hayes was pardoned by Governor Macquarie and sailed to Ireland where he lived another 20 years. Ownership of the property became uncertain until it was acquired in 1822 by Captain John Piper.
"It was then a mere waste of land until Sir Henry Hayes built a dwelling house upon it and cultivated a garden". This is how one observer described the Vaucluse improvements soon after Sir Henry Browne Hayes acquired in this isolated spot of Port Jackson. Naming the property after the village of Vaucluse in the south of France, he built a small cottage and in 1803 set about transforming his "mere waste of land", building two huts and outbuildings, clearing for agricultural uses and planting several thousand fruit trees. None of these survive. Hayes left the colony in 1812, his estate was bought by Captain John Piper in 1822, the newspapers describing it as "a small farm". Between 1813 and 1827 the estate passed through several hands.
William Charles Wentworth
On 27 August 1827 William Charles Wentworth who, together with Gregory Blaxland and Lt.William Lawson, was an explorer of the Blue Mountains, and a barrister, author and co-editor, and publisher of The Australian newspaper, purchased the estate from Captain John Piper. He consolidated the estate through an additional grant brought the harbourside estate to . Wentworth used Vaucluse as a family home and as a setting to enhance his status as a public figure.Smith, 2014, 4
W. C. Wentworth was born on board the Surprise moored off Norfolk Island in 1790, to surgeon D'Arcy Wentworth and former Irish convict mother, Catherine Crowley. He spent his early years on the island, returning to Sydney with his parents to settle in Parramatta, where D'Arcy became a prosperous land owner. In 1802 William Charles was sent to England to be educated. On his return in 1810 Governor Macquarie appointed him as acting provost-general, granting him along the Nepean River. On 15 October 1810 Wentworth rode his father's horse to victory in the first official horse race on Australian soil, in Hyde Park, Sydney.
In 1813 he, with Blaxland and Lawson, led an expedition that crossed the Blue Mountains, with four servants and an Aboriginal guide. As a reward W. C. Wentworth was granted another . He continued to assist his father with his business activities, combining farming interests with sandalwood trading in the South Pacific, before returning to England in 1816 to study law at Cambridge University. While there he wrote a book published in London in 1818 "A Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales". He argued for political reform and liberalisation, advocating elected assembly for NSW, trial by jury and free settler emigration. Wentworth returned to NSW in 1824. In 1827 his father died and he inherited his property, making him one of the wealthiest men in the colony. Purchasing land in eastern Sydney, he built Vaucluse House. From the time of his grant of Wentworth began sub-dividing the land.Mather, 1982, 3
Wentworth's total estate was ; his estate stretching from the Macquarie Lighthouse on South Head to the eastern heights of Rose Bay. Wentworth and his wife Sarah Cox moved to the estate with their growing family in 1828, carrying out major building and ground works through 25 years of occupancy. By the 1830s the Wentworth family had made many visible improvements at Vaucluse, including turrets on the house, a sandstone stable in 1829 by architect George Cookney, a large kitchen wing and convict barracks.
Conrad Martens' 1840 sketch from Vaucluse Bay shows a clear view to the residence and what appears to be a well-established climber (possibly Wisteria sinensis) over the verandah. Wentworth did further work on the main house in the late 1840s including adding the verandah crenulations. At this time the vine seen in Martens' 1840 sketch was possibly removed to carry out this work. There is no fountain apparent. To the west is a dense grove of trees (possibly native) and a large Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla) 25–30 years old and probably planted in the pre-1827 period.
Colonial Secretary, Alexander Macleay received the Yulan magnolia (M.denudata), a small tree from south-eastern China, at Elizabeth Bay, in 1836. From the 1850s onwards it is listed for sale in nurseries such as the Darling Nursery, Sydney and Guilfoyle's Exotic Nursery in Double Bay. This tree continues to thrive in the Vaucluse House pleasure garden.Holliday, 2017 Vaucluse House and its furnishings were clearly intended to provide the correct social surroundings for Wentworth and his wife's immediate family of seven daughters and three sons. Sir Henry Browne Hayes' modest structure disappeared within the building fabric of the Wentworth's gothic mansion. The public areas were designed for effect and the Drawing and Dining Rooms, long hall and sweeping staircase was as fashionable as the Wentworth's taste would allow. Vaucluse House was never completed due to factors which included the 1840s depression and Wentworth's intentions for a full facade, bedroom additions and formal entrance are unrealised.
Although Wentworth was a prominent and important figure in colonial politics, he was never welcomed into the Sydney "exclusives" club. Initially Wentworth identified himself with the cause of the emancipists and native-born Australians, establishing the first non-government newspaper, The Australian, to agitate for reform. He entered the Parliament of New South Wales in 1843, a rather dynamic time in Australian politics. Wentworth chaired a committee formed to draft a new constitution for NSW. The democrats and radicals accused him of attempting to create a "bunyip aristocracy" that gave voting rights to the wealthy land owners and squatter class in the colony. After a number of re-drafts a democratic constitution was accepted and responsible government formed, although the NSW Legislative Council remained unelected. Wentworth also had a proposed plan to purchase the entire south island of New Zealand from the Maori tribes.
Wentworth regarded Vaucluse House as an estate—a private residence with outbuildings. Several outbuildings remain and their function can be easily identified. It acted as a base for a man who helped form the Australian Patriotic Association, who had one of his constitutional drafts serve as the basis for a colonial government granted by London, was a member of the Legislative Council, who was an active player in the improvement of education and was involved in the establishment of The University of Sydney and was Chair for the Select Committee that drafted the 1854 constitutional document.
John Hosking lease In March 1853 the family sold most of the contents of the house by auction and moved to Europe. In December the house and within the fences was leased to John Hosking for three years. When they left for England in 1854, the estate was well established. The 1854–56 lease agreement to John Hosking required him to keep "the park, gardens, orangeries, vineyard and buildings, fencing, hedges, ditches, gates, bridges, stiles, rails, poles, posts and drains in good and sufficient order". No mention is made of the fountain. There is also reference to gravel being rolled; from this it can be assumed that either the garden paths and /or the drive were gravelled. Bridges referred to would be of two types—vehicular for crossing the creek and pedestrian.Mather, 1982, 4 From the available literature, pictorial information, sub-division plans and municipal maps of the Wentworth Estate it can be established that the garden and grounds were most characteristically the curtilage of an estate residence completed in the 1860s and reaching maturity in the 1880s.Mather, 1982, 1
Subsequent occupation by the Wentworth family
When the Wentworths returned briefly in 1861–62, many improvements were made to the pleasure grounds. The gothic revival iron verandah was built and fountain installed in the pleasure garden. The Wentworths returned with advanced European tastes. Renovations at Vaucluse were necessary after several years of relative neglect by tenants, and the present verandah with its Gothic Revival columns replaced an earlier flat roofed verandah. Use of the estate grounds extended to the harbour side Beach Paddock. The family introduced new plantings to the gardens and orchards and innovations in fencing shaped and formalised the approaches to the property. At this time the fountain on the front lawn was built.
The Wentworths returned to England in 1862, the estate being occupied by various agents, relations and members of the immediate family. Visitors have enjoyed the spectacular display of the climber Wisteria sinensis on the house's verandah every spring since 1862.Parramatta Advertiser, 2005