Bishops Lodge

About

Bishops Lodge is a heritage-listed former residence and boys' hostel and now house museum at Moama Street, Hay, in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. It was built in 1888. It is also known as Linton House Hostel for Boys. The property is owned by Hay Shire Council. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.

Establishment of the Anglican Diocese of Riverina

In 1829 Charles Sturt and his men passed along the Murrumbidgee River on horses and drays. During the late-1830s stock was regularly overlanded to South Australia via the Lower Murrumbidgee. At the same time stockholders were edging westward along the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee, Billabong and Murray systems. By 1839 all of the river frontages in the vicinity of present-day Hay were occupied by squatters. By the mid-1850s pastoral runs in the western Riverina were well-established and prosperous. The nearby Victorian gold rush provided an expanding market for stock. The prime fattening country of the Riverina became a sort of holding centre, from where the Victorian market could be supplied as required.

The locality where Hay township developed was originally known as Lang's Crossing-place (named after three brothers named Lang who were leaseholders of runs on the southern side of the river). It was the crossing on the Murrumbidgee River of a well-travelled stock-route (known as 'the Great North Road') leading to the markets of Victoria. In 1856-7 Captain Francis Cadell, pioneer of steam-navigation on the Murray River, placed a manager at Lang's Crossing-place with the task of establishing a store (initially in a tent). In August 1858 steamers owned by rival owners, Francis Cadell and William Randell, successfully travelled up the Murrumbidgee as far as Lang's Crossing-place (with Cadell's steamer Albury continuing up-river to Gundagai ). By October 1859 "Hay" had been chosen as the name for the township [after John Hay (later Sir John), a wealthy squatter from the Upper Murray, member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly and former Secretary of Lands and Works]. Hay, situated on the Murrumbidgee, was gazetted as a town in 1859. In the late nineteenth century, several grand buildings representing Hay's aspirations to become the capital of the Riverina were built. However inter-colonial disputes over trade thwarted these aspirations and instead of booming Hay remained small and isolated, but importantly connected to Sydney via a rail line.

On 25 May 1882 a meeting was held at Hay Courthouse in support of Hay becoming the new centre of the Riverina Diocese and the site for a cathedral. Hay was centrally located within the Riverina District and the seat of the Bishopric would serve to benefit the social and moral fibre of the town. Paradoxically, at this time Hay could not even support a clergyman's stipend.

The citizens of the rival town of Deniliquin, to the south were also discussing the matter of the residency for the new bishopric. That town was also considered to be a suitable site as it was the largest and one of the oldest of the Riverina towns. In 1882, despite the one hundred and fifteen thousand square miles covered by the new Diocese, Hay and Deniliquin were the largest towns within its boundaries and Narrandera was the only other town, which the Bishop might have even considered as his seat. The Riverina area may have included almost one third of the colony of New South Wales but at that time, prior to mineral discoveries around Broken Hill and the development of irrigation schemes, it was sparsely populated. From December 1881, when the generosity of John Campbell, MLC, enabled the new Diocese to be established with a ten thousand pound bequest, the towns in the western Riverina began vying for the honour of being the cathedral city. A public meeting was held in Hay in May 1882, and the Chairman, H. T. Makin, was reported as saying:

'...In the event of the Bishop deciding to reside at Hay, a Cathedral would be built here and the town would become a city; the presence of the Bishop in their midst was calculated to improve the tone of society, and would benefit the inhabitants socially, morally and commercially.' Even in 1882 the leading citizens of Hay were quite confident that the Bishop would select Hay for the many advantages it offered over Deniliquin and Narrandera. Its central location in the Diocese and "...it being directly in communication with the metropolis" would, they felt, assure Hay's selection. They also discussed the need for the people of Hay to pledge financial support to enable the Bishop's residence and cathedral to be built here. Ninety pounds was pledged at this meeting.

At the request of the Anglican Diocese of Goulburn, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London selected the first Bishop of Riverina. On 17 November 1883 the position was offered to the Right Reverend Sydney Linton.

Sydney Linton arrived with his wife and family in Sydney on board the Parramatta in early 1885 and was enthroned as the Anglican Bishop of the Riverina at St Paul's Church, Hay on 18 March of that same year. He travelled extensively throughout the area during his early ministry and experienced the extremes of the Riverina climate and had ample opportunity to consider the design of a building to accommodate his family and the administrative needs of the diocese. The result is an innovative and successful building constructed in 1888.

The Bishop's Lodge residence was constructed in Hay by Bishop Linton after promises of support from the Mayor and people of Hay. These promises were not fulfilled and the Linton family bore the major part of the debt for construction after the Bishop's death. The diocesan headquarters were later transferred to Narrandera.

Bishop Linton employed the architectural practice of Sulman and Parkes, based in Sydney, and the plans for Bishop's Lodge were drawn by John Sulman, incorporating Linton's many ideas for climate control. John Sulman, born in 1849, left a thriving practice in England when he and his invalid wife migrated to New South Wales in 1885. He was a highly successful and respected architect whose practice in the colony also prospered and he remained a partner in the firm Sulman and Power until 1928. His contribution to his profession also included teaching. From 1887 until 1912 he lectured in architecture in the Faculty of Engineering at Sydney University and from 1916 to 1927 he was again at the university, lecturing in Town Planning. It would appear that Bishop's Lodge stands alone in his work, being quite atypical of his style. Much of his work featured Italianate detailing and was constructed in brick and or stone. Comparisons with other examples of his work from the same period as Bishop's Lodge would appear to confirm Bishop Linton's major influence in the design and materials for the Lodge. For example, the Yaralla Cottages in Concord, Sydney, were also completed in 1889, but in an English Queen Anne Revival style with what has been described as 'archetypical Sulmanesque marriage of brick and finely carved sandstone detailing.

Thus Hay became the cathedral city of the new Diocese. The population then, as now, was approximately three thousand people. At that time Hay was an established town in the centre of the vast Riverina plains, with many imposing public buildings and urban services such as reticulated water. St Paul's pro-cathedral was erected by the end of 1885, the original plans to build a school room and synod hail having been hastily re-arranged and improved upon in order to create a "temporary" cathedral.

Finally, in 1890 Bishop Linton and his family were able to move into their new, almost completed, residence. The Bishop wrote that:... "The home surpasses all our utmost expectations, for comfort, convenience, and for beauty. The painting of the interior iron walls is lovely, and is done in admirable taste, the exterior is quite plain, but not ugly, having no ornamentation beyond the Christian sign over the main entrance, and a [bishop's] mitre carved in the woodwork. We can now speak of the house as being admirable for a summer residence, and cool beyond any other in town. The thermometer has never exceeded 90 degrees within the house. The chapel will look very well when finished. It has a painted glass window manufactured in Sydney, from instructions given by me.'. When the Lintons moved into the new and nearly finished Bishop's Lodge in September 1889, a substantial fence surrounded about eight acres, which comprised the home grounds. Here the ground was ploughed to a depth of 18 inches and four hundred trees, both fruit and ornamental, were planted over a three-month period that spring. A further thirteen acres of paddock lay immediately to the south. This was an area subject to flooding by the Bungah Creek, and the Bishop felt it would be exceedingly valuable for the cultivation of horse feed and fruit trees, if irrigated. It was separated from the Lodge by Moama Street, which is now the Sturt Highway.

The early garden suffered two major setbacks. In November 1890 an extraordinary plague of locusts stripped the entire garden, eating all the vegetables and flowers and the leaves and young shoots of the fruit trees, in some cases ring-barking the stems. This was despite great efforts by Bishop Linton and all at hand to prevent damage by lighting fires and filling the garden with murky smoke and also beating around the garden with sacks. According to Bishop Linton every garden within a hundred-mile radius was equally attacked, only the older, more established gardens were better able to survive the locusts.

In October 1891 a flood inundated half of the home grounds, the river being twenty-five feet above the usual summer level. Some portions of the garden were four feet under water and many fruit trees were flooded for several weeks. The house remained four feet above the flood-water. Bishop Linton wrote that most of the Chinese market gardens around Hay were inundated and supplies had to be brought in from Sydney. The Bishop's Lodge vegetable gardens were better off than most, as the beds then currently in use were above flood level, however he did note that their strawberries, asparagus and rhubarb were out of sight and would probably perish. The flood-prone aspect of some of the grounds would explain the way in which the garden has developed.

By the early 1890s Linton's diocese covered over a third of New South Wales but included few more than 20,000 Anglicans; many of the landholders were absentees or non-Anglicans while the mines at Broken Hill were attracting increasing numbers of Methodists. In an effort to make his diocese an effective unit of the Church, Bishop Linton had set up regular diocesan institutions. A Church Society was founded in 1885 to build up a central fund and promote the extension of work in the diocese. The first synod met in 1887 and by 1890 its constitution was in good order. He recruited new clergy, his staff of six in 1885 had by 1893 increased to eighteen. Churches were built and new parishes were formed and the diocese was enlarged by the accession of the township of Wilcannia from the Bathurst diocese.

Bishop Sidney Linton died in 1894. Almost immediately the Church authorities turned to the question of the Diocesan debt incurred in Bishop's Lodge. The responsibility for the debt had now shifted from the Bishop himself, to the diocese.

Bishop Ernest Augustus Anderson was installed as the new Bishop of Riverina in 1894. He was consecrated at St Paul's Cathedral, London, on 29 June the next year, then raised money for his diocese before returning to New South Wales, and he was installed in St Paul's Pro-Cathedral at Hay on 11 February 1896. Bishop Anderson had had experience in Queensland with similar bush conditions to those he met in the Riverina Diocese, now a see of over 70,000 square miles, with fourteen parishes worked by fifteen clergy. He was faced immediately with the financial collapse of his diocese.

As early as 1897 the matter of the Bishop's stipend was being aired publicly: '...A telegram from Hay states that prompt steps are being taken to secure to Bishop Anderson the salary which was attached to his office upon his being raised to the episcopate. The salary was then (Pounds)1,000 per annum, but owing to losses of revenue it is now only half that amount.'

The financial collapse was partly due to the debt on Bishop's Lodge, and partly to the fact that the diocesan Episcopal Endowment fund had been largely depleted through the dishonesty of a solicitor. After two court cases, by 1915 some £11,000 of the original £15,000 had been rescued. Meanwhile, Anderson had been paid less than half the annual £800 he had been promised and had spent his personal fortune in maintaining his position as bishop, furnishing Bishop's Lodge and educating his children; it was twenty-two years before he was free of debt.