Mulholland's Farm

About

Mulholland's Farm is a heritage-listed residence at 9 Pixie Avenue, Green Point, Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia. It was built in 1907. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.

The property known as Mulholland's Farm is situated in an area of two Crown land grants made in the late 1830s. The history of the land tenure is therefore complex, but does provide clear evidence for the forming of Mulholland's farm.

The first and larger of these is the 640 acres (Portion 174 of the Parish of Kincumber) granted to Major Henry Smyth on 13 September 1839. Smyth was a former commandant of the penal colony of Port Macquarie. Smyth's grant had a substantial water frontage to Brisbane Water on its western boundary.

Traversing Smyth's grant was the main public road between Gosford and Kincumber. This parish road (established at the request and maintenance of the inhabitants of the district) was surveyed in 1858.

Smyth retained ownership of the grant until July 1847 when it was sold to Herbert Solway. Solway's ownership was relatively short; selling the property in October 1852 to John Stirling. Stirling mortgaged the property and in defaulting on his repayments the property was sold by his mortgagor, W. D. Nunn, to Richard Albert Watson in January 1881. Watson sold the property to Carl Ludwig Sahl and John Nobbs in October 1881.

Smyth's grant (and an additional area of 50 acres to the north granted to John Roby Hatfield) was subdivided by Carl Ludwig Sahl and John Nobbs in 1882 to form 67 allotments known as the "Green Point Estate". John Nobbs (1845-1921) was the son of a noted early colonial gardener. Nobbs' background was as a conveyancer building up a lucrative practice in the Parramatta region, becoming the first mayor of the newly incorporated council of Granville in 1885. He was the founder and president of the Fruitgrowers' Union of New South Wales.

The estate, surveyed and laid out by Dawson and Stephen, licensed surveyors, of 139 Pitt Street, Sydney, offered a range of allotments varying in size from 2 to 32 acres. All allotments had access to a reserved road of 100' width. A government wharf reserve was also established (adjacent Lot 6 of the estate) together with associated road access (now known as Lexington Parade). The reservation of all land within 100' of the high-water mark of Brisbane Water (probably established at the issue of the original Crown grants), was retained by the Crown.

The estate was offered for sale on 20 June 1882 in the rooms of auctioneers Batt Rodd & Purves, 88 Pitt Street, Sydney. The auctioneer's description of the estate was as follows:

The Auctioneers confidently recommend this Estate to Gentlemen in search of Blocks for Waterside Country Residences. The Scenery is simply magnificent, and the nicely wooded hills, sloping gently down to the placid Lake-like Broadwater of Gosford, afford unrivalled sites for Building purposes.

To those seeking Sporting Retreats no better opportunity can offer, Fish and Game abundant.

The Green Point Estate, in an area over 1,000 acres, has been subdivided by Messrs, Dawson & Stephen in their usual masterly style into large Blocks (not allotments) of from 2 to 32 aces each, as per plan herein. Situate in the heart of the growing and fast improving district of Brisbane Water (called with good reason the Rhine of New South Wales), the inducements to buy are tempting. That the soil is rich is proved by the fact that magnificent Tree ferns, Longalous Cabbage Trees, and every variety of Mountain Bush Timber grow on the Estate in the utmost profusion, while the land is splendidly timbered. As soon as the Great Northern Railway between Sydney and Newcastle is finished, the value of this Property will enormously enhanced. Steamers ply to and from Sydney daily, doing the trip in little more than Three Hours.

Water frontage lots, eminently adapted for gentlemen with leisure time in search of healthful recreation. The Waters abound with Fish and the Woods teem with Game.

Farm lots. The soil being rich, loamy, and well watered, Timber getters will find Forests of Magnificent Trees admittedly suited for the requirements of the market, either for Railway Sleepers or Sawn Planks."

Terms offered were 10% to be payable in 3 months with the balance payable in equal instalments at 9, 12, 15, 18, and 21 months from the day of sale at 6% interest.

Mulholland's farm house is located on Lot 1 (area of 3 acres 6 roods 1/2 perch) located at the south-west corner of the Smyth's grant. Lot 1 had a water frontage to Brisbane Water, set back by the foreshore reservation of 100', and was bounded by reserved roads on the north (now Elfin Hill Road) and east. While some lots were sold at the time of the auction in 1882, Lot 1 was purchased from Sahl and Nobbs in November 1891 by Charles Thomas Sandon and William Hume for £96/8/11. Sandon later in the same month brought out Hume's interest and at the same time purchased the 100' reservation of land which separated Lot 1 from Brisbane Water. This area had been granted by purchase to Sahl and Nobbs in October 1890 after lobbying the government for rescission of the usual 100' high-water mark reservation. That reservation land became a functional part of the subsequent farm, and the boat shed, wharf, well, road and water pipeline were built on it.

Sandon was a resident of Sydney, and a stationer by profession. The purchase was probably a speculative venture for in July, 1892, the property was sold to Eliza Sophia Winton, a widow residing in North Sydney, for £150.20.

Winton's ownership again appears to have been primarily as an investment, although in this instance the wisdom of her action may be open to question given that she sold the allotment for only £50 in 1907 to Herbert Henry Thompson, a farmer, who was probably residing on the adjacent property to the south.

The other Crown land grant was made to Henry Linden on 17 June 1840. Linden was a Sydney publican operating in the 1840s the Woolpack Inn in Sussex Street. This grant (Portion 75 of the Parish of Kincumber) comprised an area of 60 acres located to the south of Smyth's 640 acres. Linden's grant also had a water frontage, and included a frontage to the mouth of Egan Creek. An early name for Linden's grant was 'Linden's Flat'.

Linden retained ownership of the grant throughout his life; it eventually being sold by his trustees in August 1878 to Francis McDonald, a Sydney grocer.

A substantial portion (53a 3r Op) of Linden's 60 acre grant was retained until the late 1880s by Francis McDonald. McDonald' s interest or use of this property, if any, is not known to the authors. McDonald was a victim of the financial downturn of the 1890s, and in 1897 his real and personal estate was sequestrated.22 In July, 1900, McDonald's property at Green Point was sold by the official assignee, Lancelot Hadfield Lloyd, to Rosa Ellen Jane Mobbs, the wife of the Parramatta auctioneer George Henry Mobbs. Mobbs subsequently subdivided the 53 acres, with one allotment of 16 acres, bounded on the west by Brisbane Water, on the east by Egan Creek and on the north by the Green Point Estate, being purchased by Herbert Henry Thompson in December 1902.