Rockwall, Potts Point

About

Rockwall is a heritage-listed house and former school at 7 Rockwall Crescent in the inner city Sydney suburb of Potts Point in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by John Verge and built from 1831 to 1837. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.

In the 1830s the whole area from Potts Point to Kings Cross and up to Oxford Street was known as Darlinghurst- probably named in honour of Governor Ralph Darling (1824–31)'s wife, Eliza. The rocky ridge that extended inland from Potts Point was called Eastern or Woolloomooloo Hill from the early days of white settlement. The earliest grant of land on Woolloomooloo Hill was made to Judge-Advocate John Wylde in 1822. In 1830 Wylde sold six of his 11 acres on the Point to Joseph Hyde Potts, accountant to the Bank of NSW, after whom Potts Point is named.

By the late 1820s Sydney was a crowded, disorderly and unsanitary town closely settled around the Rocks and Sydney Cove, with a European population of around 12000. Governor Darling was receiving applications from prominent Sydney citizens for better living conditions. The ridge of Woolloomooloo Hill beckoned, offering proximity to town and incomparable views from the Blue Mountains to the heads of Sydney Harbour.

In 1828 Darling ordered the subdivision of Woolloomooloo Hill into suitable "town allotments" for large residences and extensive gardens. He then issued "deeds of grant" to select members of colonial society (in particular, his senior civil servants). The first 7 grants were issued in 1828, with the other allotments formally granted in 1831.

The private residences that were built on the grants were required to meet Darling's so-called "villa conditions" which were possibly determined and overseen by his wife, who had architectural skills. These ensured that only one residence was built on each grant to an approved standard and design, that they were each set within a generous amount of landscaped land and that, in most cases, they faced the town. By the mid-1830s the parade of "white" villas down the spine of Woolloomooloo Hill presented a picturesque sight, and was visible from the harbour and town of Sydney.

John Busby (1765-1857) was a mineral surveyor and civil engineer. In 1823 he was appointed to manage the colony's coal mines and to find a new supply of fresh water, as the Tank Stream had become too polluted. Busby became famous for overseeing construction of " Busby's Bore " a tunnel which brought fresh water from the Lachlan Swamps (in today's Centennial Park ) into the city when the Tank Stream, the city's original water supply, became polluted and inadequate to serve the city's water needs.

Busby received a grant of over 8 acres in 1828. Architect John Verge started plans for Busby's house, Rockwall, and a cottage in 1830. Verge's plans for the house were approved by the Governor the same year.

However, in the early 1830s Busby found himself in financial difficulties, and was forced to sell his grant. From 1835, Verge altered the existing plans for the new owner of Rockwall, Hamilton Collins Sempill, a grazier and merchant. Verge supervised the works for Sempill through to completion in 1837. A c. 1840 painting (artist unknown: Sempill House, Sydney, NSW, State Library) shows it with extensive gardens including a carriage loop, shrubberies and Norfolk Island pines ( Araucaria excelsa ).

One of the earliest surviving Verge-designed buildings, Rockwall is amongst the few surviving of the once many villas which once dotted Potts Point's "Woolloomooloo Hill".

In the 1920s and 1930s, the original villas and the later grand 19th century residences were demolished to make way for blocks of flats, hotels and later, soaring towers of units. Today only 5 of the original 17 villas still stand, with the lost villas and other grand houses commemorated in the names of the streets of Potts Point, Darlinghurst and Kings Cross. Rockwall is one of these surviving five villas.

According to Verge's ledger, work was commenced on Rockwall prior to 1835. Sempill bought the property in January 1835. Sempill entered into an arrangement with Verge for 'Plans, Specifications and Agreements for altering and completing (the) house at Wooloomooloo (sic late Busby's) and Superintending Works of the same'. Stabling was also to be designed and constructed on the property.

By the time of Sempill's ownership - as depicted in a contemporary watercolour - Rockwall's grounds boasted a circular driveway facing Macleay Street which was balanced on the Sydney (western) side by a circular drive and garden featuring, among other exotic plantings, Norfolk Island pines ( Araucaria heterophylla ). In Sydney, these trees had become a symbol of vice-regal residences and of harbourside villas and private pleasure grounds. The grounds surrounding Rockwall re-emphasised its strong axis from the front to the back door and thus its design as a villa "in the round". Moreover, in obeying fashionable domain, and external offices for stables and domestic economy'; its respectable distance from the growing town of Sydney; and its pleasurable recreational and even, perhaps, instructive environment, Rockwall was one of the first examples in a long tradition of colonial villa architecture (and landscape design) which reflected changing taste in England during the 1820s.

1836 saw the house pass into the hands of Thomas Urmson Ryder who, it is noted in Verge's ledger, ordered plans and specifications for verandahs for Rockwall and of a garden house for the property. Alterations, additions and repairs "in the completion of (the) premises" were also recorded in Verge's ledger. Heralding the boom in subdivision and sales which was to transform Woolloomooloo Hill in the 1840s, Ryder put Rockwall up for public auction on one half of the original estate on 14 December 1837: the other portion was sold off as "Thirty allotments of Garden and Building Ground", two of which had a cottage on them (one with a detached stable) and another a four-stalled stable of stone and brick.

Rockwall sold at auction in 1837 to Arthur Little whose daughter occupied it until 1872.

By 1843 there was a serious financial crisis in the colony and the Darlinghurst grantees suffered. They pressed for the freedom to subdivide land, and Sydney's first exclusive suburb opened up to investors. From the early 1850s, the Gold Rush boosted the economy, and interest in the land available at Darlinghurst grew. The first subdivisions occurred around the edges of the original grants, with blocks of a size that allowed other grand houses to be built and new streets formed.

In the 1870s, heavy land taxes imposed by the administration of the Premier, Sir Henry Parkes, led to another wave of subdivisions of the original grants. The late 19th century saw the final demise of the grounds surrounding the original villas, and in some cases, the villas themselves.

Rockwall was used as a girls' school, Belmore College ( c. 1873-1884) and again as the Ailanthus College for Girls (1904–13). It then returned to use as a private residence.

Dr. Herbert Russell Nolan, an ear nose and throat specialist who performed the first appendicectomy in Australia, purchased the house it in 1914. He commissioned architect William Hardy Wilson in conjunction with the Sydney architects Neave and Berry to prepare an elaborate proposal for Rockwall around 1919-20 but Sydney City Council development application records indicate it was not acted upon.

Subsequent additions and alterations were to destroy or bury many of the house's original qualities. The first documented alterations were done for Ivy M. Corke in 1921. Extensive alterations and additions were made by 1924-5, 1928 and 1936 by the Nurses' Club Ltd., a body which owned Rockwall from 1925-1957.

In 1957 it was converted into the Rockwall Private Hotel and major renovations that year saw construction of a new foyer, replacement en masse of the windows and doors, removal of cedar joinery and fireplaces. Further additions were made in 1960.