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by B. J. Madden

Mid-November 1979, saw the demolition and removal of a landmark in Kingsgrove – the Gas Holder in Kingsgrove Road opposite Omnibus Road. The Gas Holder was built during 1926-27 in order to improve the gas supply in that area, which was then undergoing rapid expansion.

The Holder had a diameter of 164 feet and fully inflated was approximately 114 feet in height.

At 6am on 15 February 1956, the early morning quiet was shattered by ‘a muffled roar’, a ‘great flame shot into the air’ and residents thought that a bomb had exploded. The ‘muffled’ sound was the roar of flaming gas escaping from a major leak at the top of the container. Four residents suffered superficial burns. The Australian Gas Light Co., explanation of the incident was that it was not an explosion in the true sense of the word but was caused by failure of the crown. A ring of corrosion had formed around the periphery of the crown, causing the metal to part and the crown to open up in much the same fashion as the lid of a jam tin. The escaping gas ignited in the atmosphere causing very little damage. The Holder, without the support of the containing gas simply fell into the underground tank.

The Company decommissioned the holder early in 1979 when it began to pump processed natural gas into the Kingsgrove area from the Holders at Chullora. There is a photograph of the framework of the Gas Holder being demolished in the St. George and Sutherland Shire Leader of 21 November 1979.

I was able to obtain some photographs on 15 November 1979, just after demolition had commenced. The Australian Gas Light Company has been unable to locate old photographs, and I wonder whether there are any photographs of the Gas Holder or of that part of Kingsgrove on the northern side of the Tempe-East Hills railway line, which would give an indication of the size of the Gas Holder. It would be particularly interesting to see photographs taken before World War II and I would appreciate the opportunity to copy any such photographs.

This article was first published in the February 1981 edition of our magazine.

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by Tina Workman

The St George area was very fortunate that Rockdale Council had the foresight to purchase a stone cottage called Lydham Hall many decades ago with the sole purpose of conserving this beautiful old house which, in turn, would provide the area with a local history museum and a home for the St George Historical Society. It was purchased for $26,000 and opened as part of the Rockdale Council’s Centenary Celebrations in 1971.

Lydham Hall is a sandstone villa built circa 1860 for businessman Joseph Davis, his wife Ellen and their family. The house was part of a 67 acres estate that Davis called ‘Lydham Hill’, built on the highest ridge in the area and with commanding views of Botany Bay. Davis had a butchering business in Newtown and used the property to fatten up his cattle before slaughter.

The original house consisted of 4 large rooms coming off a central hallway, surrounded on all sides by a generous verandah. When Davis died in 1889, the property was subdivided and a smaller parcel of land was sold to local oyster farmer, Frederick Gibbins, who leased the property to a succession of wealthy tenants.

In 1890, the house stood on three and a half acres surrounded by outbuildings, paddocks, orchards and with rugged vegetation beyond. In 1907, Gibbins’ daughter, Ada, married renowned naturalist, David Stead. Stead was a widower with a young daughter, Christina, and the family occupied the house with their growing brood of children, Stead’s sister and her daughter.

Christina Stead would go on to become an important, internationally acclaimed author who included references to ‘Lydham Hill’ and the rounding area in a number of her books and short stories. The Stead family lived in the house until the death of Frederick Gibbins in 1917.

After Gibbins’ died, the house, as well as sections of the property, were further subdivided and a succession of owners and tenants lived at Lydham Hall until 1958. Up until that stage, the property still had substantial outbuildings to the southern side including stables and a large kitchen.

In 1917, part of the verandah on the southern end was demolished to create additional rooms which were used as a bedroom and a bathroom. There is also evidence of ‘lean-to’s’ built under the verandah on both the eastern and the northern sides.

By the late 1950s, all remnants of outbuildings were gone and the property was subdivided again, until only 1,300m2 of land was left. This was to be the last subdivision.

In 1958, the house was purchased by George and Valmai Long who lived there, as caretakers, long after it was sold to Rockdale Council.

On acquisition, the Society began the mammoth task of restoring the house, furnishing it and gathering enough objects to create a folk museum in the upstairs attic rooms. When the house officially opened in February 1971, only 2 rooms and the hall were open to the public. The other 2 rooms, the attic and the 1917 rooms were still occupied by Mr and Mrs Long and their family. Regardless, in the first year of opening, approximately 1,700 visited the house with the house charging 20 cents on entry.

The house soon found itself in a position of having too many objects and not enough space to display them. The lack of space saw the Society knock back several objects of importance, including a desk owned by David Stead, one of the original occupants of the house.

In 1972, the house was offered a large loan of furniture from the National Trust which required substantial space. The attic was vacated by the caretakers the following year and the additional space meant that the Society was able to renovate the upstairs rooms for the display of donated objects. These rooms currently display over 1,500 objects of local and historical interest.

In 1978, a new wing was built to accommodate a new caretaker. This wing included a bathroom and kitchen as well as toilets for visitors.

Today the house still sits proudly on 1300m2 surrounded by manicured, modern gardens and is regularly open to public. Throughout 2020 and 2021, the house has undergone extensive renovations which have included refurbishment of the existing slate roof, replacement of the verandah roof, repairing the verandah decking and repainting of the exterior in colours that reflect the period of the house. The house will reopen in 2022.

Stage 1 Restoration of Lydham Hall

Anyone who owns an old house will appreciate that restoration and maintenance is an ongoing process.

The last major restoration for Lydham Hall occurred in the 1970’s when Rockdale Council first purchased the house. Minor works were done as required and then, in 2015, a storm caused extensive damage to the roof of the house and interior spaces. Whilst this was repaired at the time, major restoration was required to stop further damage.

In 2019, Bayside Council successfully applied for funding from the State Government for restoration works for Lydham Hall. A new Conservation Management Plan was written and, after delays due to Covid-19, work commenced in October 2020.

Stage 1 works included:

• refurbishing the existing slate roof with new battens, sarking, flashings, gutters and downpipes on the original stone residence building;
• reconstruction of the timber framing, flashings, cladding, sarking, internal lining and roofing to the two dormers;
• removal of the dilapidated shed in the backyard;
• replacement of the verandah sheeting and painting of the dormers, chimneys and verandah posts.

Before work could commence, the Society, together with the members of the Lydham Hall Management Committee, had the task of removing all of the objects in the upstairs museum and securing furniture in the rooms impacted by the works. Many objects were washed, wrapped, transported downstairs and boxed for storage. The important task of cataloguing the collection, which had started some months earlier, was put on hold as the house would be inaccessible until work was completed in 2021.

BEFORE: the images above show missing, broken and loose tiles. The windows, fascias and timber sides of the dormers were rotted and allowing water into the house. The house in the 70s had been painted all white and new decorative fascia and finial added. The tree overhang had caused blockages in the gutters and downpipes.

AFTER: All the slate tiles were lifted, checked, cleaned and replaced. New tiles were brought in where required. New ridge capping installed and the corrugated iron verandah sheeting replaced. New timberwork on the dormers and chimneys painted to colours more appropriate to the period (taken from paint scrapings).

The colours at Lydham Hall

In the 1970s, the Council and the St George Historical Society undertook the major restoration of Lydham Hall. As part of that restoration, external elements of the house were given a new coat of paint and all the walls inside were painted or wallpapered. Existing carpets were removed and replaced with new, and the black and white check linoleum flooring was laid in the hallway. Unfortunately these finishes were selected without any research into what colours may have been originally used in the house nor any research into what colours would have been correct for the period.

As part of the 2020 restoration, a heritage architect was contracted to review the finishes and to undertake the task of carrying out paint scrapes. The scrapes done on the exterior windows and shutters showed a variety of potential colours. The next stage would be to decide on a final colour scheme – no easy task when the various stakeholders had strong and differing opinions! It was decided to paint sample colours of all the possibilities, on the house itself, in order to see how the colours looked in situ. Below is a selection of images showing the various permutations:

In September 2021, a final scheme was agreed on and approved by the architect. This scheme is fitting to a house of the 1860s and matches the colour scheme already painted on the top of the house as part of the Stage 1 works. The rendered image below shows colours for the final scheme selected.

However, the selection for colours for the interior has proven to be more elusive. Initial research revealed only a single layer of paint in all rooms with original plaster underneath. This implied that the house had only ever been painted once since the 1860’s.

The floor boards in the attic proved this theory incorrect. When the carpet was lifted in one of the rooms, an abundance of colours were revealed. These paint splashes had been deposited over many decades of painting. Fortunately, the floorboards in the attic rooms, unlike the ground floor rooms, were not sanded and polished so they revealed paint colours in different whites, pastel pinks and green to vibrant reds, greens and dark browns.

This suggests that this room, at least, had been painted multiple times despite none of these colours appearing on the walls of the house.

The mystery was solved when old meeting records were reviewed. In the November 5th 1974 meeting records for the Lydham Hall Committee, “Alderman Ron Rathbone expressed concern that no work had yet been undertaken in the bedroom. Two painters he had rung had refused to quote because of the amount of stripping that was involved.” Some months later, a company of painters were found who were willing to undertake the task and, sadly, over 100 years of historical fabric was stripped from the walls.

Further research and investigation will involve removing skirting boards and architraves around doors and windows to see if there are any remnants of historic wall paint colours or wallpapers. This research will have to come later, when future funding becomes available. In the meantime, the house interior will be repainted, with the approval of the heritage architect, in neutral colours suitable for a temporary scheme for a house of this period.

The wallpaper in the upstairs rooms and in the dining room will also be removed as part of Stage 2 renovations. These wallpapers were applied in the 1970’s and are now in poor condition. The walls will be temporarily repainted in preparation for the house re-opening in 2023. The wallpapers in the other rooms will remain in place until further funding becomes available.

Cleaning the collection at Lydham Hall

In early 2020, the task of cleaning and cataloguing the collection at Lydham hall was being planned, and had just started, when Covid-19 arrived.

Since then, the museum has only been intermittently accessible to volunteers between State lockdowns and renovation works so the project has been extremely slow. However, some progress has been made.

The objects in the upstairs museum needed to be relocated to allow access to builders to the roof and attic. Volunteers took this opportunity to wash and box up the crockery, silver and glass in the display cabinets for temporary storage downstairs. Many of these objects hadn’t been cleaned for many years and the high humidity and leaking roof had left the items dirty, dusty and mouldy. Once work on the roof had been completed, these objects were unpacked and stored upstairs ready for the task of cataloguing them.

The silver and metal objects in the collection are also in the process of being cleaned and catalogued. Because of the damp conditions, some of these items were so badly corroded and tarnished that they were unrecognisable. The long arduous process of cleaning these may take some time.

The Society also has a large collection of textiles ranging from bedspreads, supper cloths, doyleys, dresses and a large collection of nightwear, underwear and children’s wear. Many of these were in poor condition when they were donated, and the environmental conditions inside the house have made them more susceptible to mould and insects.

The volunteers started with the easy textiles – doyleys. There were hundreds of them! Some old, some in fragile condition, but most were in good condition. They were all inspected for condition, age, tears and stains and washed or treated accordingly. The same routine was applied to the white linens (underwear, nightshirts and children’s dresses) and bedcloths. Items too fragile to wash have been stored until they can be conserved professionally and will be reviewed for future care.

One large fabric object was deemed too important, too large and too fragile to keep at Lydham Hall. This object was the Bexley Public School Patriotic Appeal Flag – a rare and significant object from the first World War.

A funding-raising project in support of the war effort, the flag is embroidered with 59 names of local residents who donated to the appeal.

The flag was donated to Bayside Council who has cleaned, repaired and conserved this valuable object and it is now on display in the Rockdale Town Hall foyer.

Books are another object in abundance at Lydham Hall, including a huge collection of Bibles and religious books. Like the textiles, many of these were donated in poor condition and are also affected further by humidity and insects. Volunteers are in the process of cleaning, reviewing, sorting and cataloguing these.

It is anticipated that the task of cataloguing the collection fully may take a number of years. Once the house reopens properly and the Society can gain full access again, volunteers will be called on to help.

by B. J. Madden

Kingsgrove was the site of a factory for the manufacture of tobacco and snuff for about 20 years from 1854. Thomas Smithson was a native of Leeds, Yorkshire (born c 1814). He and his family are said to have arrived in Sydney on the ship Ascendant in 1852, and resided at Paddington for a couple of years. He had been engaged in tobacco manufacturing in England and it is said that he was associated with Hugh Dixson prior to coming to Kingsgrove. Hugh Dixson had founded the Dixson Tobacco Co Ltd. which eventually became British Tobacco and is now Amatil. his grandson, Sir William Dixson, established the Dixson Collection which is associated with the State Library of New South Wales.

After leasing the land for a year, Thomas Smithson purchased Lot 11 of 25 acres at the corner of Stoney Creek Road and Croydon Road in December 1855, although it was mortgaged back to Michael Gannon at the same time. The tobacco factory was on the southern side of Stoney Creek Road about half way between Caroline St and Kingsgrove Road and most of the Sydney Houses were supplied with snuff and tobacco. The tobacco leaf was said to have been grown on the property. One of his granddaughters was taught by her mother to plait her hair in six strands, which was the way they plaited the tobacco.

After operating the factory for 20 years, Thomas retired. Incidentally, the land as re-possessed by Michael Gannon because of money owing. Thomas died at his residence in Stoney Creek Road on 26th June 1908, but his residence at this time was at the rear of his son’s house, which is where the Bexley Golf Clubhouse is now located. The Sydney Morning Herald on 1 July 1908, reported that the funeral, which took place at Moorefields Cemetery on Sunday 28 June 1908 was one of the largest seen in the district, and was attended by many old residents. Thomas Smithson’s descendants were said to number 122, and he was 94 years of age at the time of his death. He was one of the first road trustees for the district, a position he held until his death. (This would probably refer to Stoney Creek Road, which was planned 1865 and opened 28th July 1868).

In the item concerning his death in the St. George Call of 4 July 1908, it was said that he could relate many incidents of the early days when the settlers, anxious to make a decent road to Sydney. brought their own saplings and laid the first corduroy track, giving an approach to Cooks River. Smithson’s Wine Bar, run by Thomas’ son James Edward Smithson, is a separate story.

This article was first published in the February 1981 edition of our magazine.

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by Valmai Long

Joseph Davis built “Lydham Hall” on Lydham Hill when he purchased 68 acres of the original land grant given to James Chandler by Governor Brisbane.

This was the first subdivision of Bexley. Large blocks of sandstone were hauled uphill to the building site from the quarry, now the corner of Villiers Street and Arlington Street. All interior woodwork is cedar, originally hand polished, and the marble carrara fireplaces were imported from Italy. James Benson was the stone mason and like most of the early settlers, related to Granny Parkes.

The coach entrance at the junction of Forest Road and Clarence Road, was the scene of one of Bexley’s biggest social nights, when Joseph Davis gave his housewarming.

Carriages swept down the circular driveway to the front entrance (now the rear of the home) and were greeted by an orchestra engaged for the occasion.

The “Lidham Hill” mazurka was especially composed for the opening and the music is still kept at “Lydham Hall”.

Joseph Davis was a butcher and drove his cattle overland from Homebush to the waterhole (now the corner of Herbert and Tyrrell Streets). After resting in the paddocks they were taken to his slaughter yards at the Earl Park site at Arncliffe.

Joseph Davis and his family were unfortunate. His son Frederick born a cripple died at 15 years of age. Joseph became paralysed after lifting a side of beef. He drove around the district in a converted victoria, in a reclining position.

He is buried in the family vault at St. George Church of England, Hurstville, with his wife and son Frederick.

Today footsteps are often heard pacing the floors and treading the stairway. One foot drags as though a cripple is walking. The ghost is affectionately called Joseph by the owners, Mrs. Long is confident Joseph is looking for his money, which was never found after his death. No domestic animal will stay in the house when the ghost walks.

The surrounding streets are named after his sons Frederick, Herbert, Oswell, Stanley (now Tyrrell), Joseph (now Lydham Avenue) and Clarence for his daughter.

A later owner James Stead, was a botanist and named Banksia Station.

He kept a zoo and emus and kangaroos and fine bloodstock was bred on the hilltops. Stead imported stock from his stud farms in New Zealand. The animals were better housed than a lot of humans. Their home had glass windows, cedar shutters and an underlay of bitumen to the iron roof. It still existed until the 1950’s. The old water wells were turned into snake pits. Men today, tell me how as boys, they stoned the snakes, and were chased up trees by the horses.

One dry summer the local housewives were kept on their toes, when two snakes escaped from the snake pit.

The kitchen garden which supplied the home with fresh vegetables was the corner of Lydham Avenue and Herbert Streets (opposite side to Lydham Hall).

Dr. Gordon Craig a former owner, in later years was appalled to see the estate cut up and built on.

The traffic in the early days were mostly timber getters and baker’s carts. They rumbled along in their juggernauts at night, lighting the way with a candle in an inverted bottle.

One man out courting was treed all night by the wild dogs in the Old Forest Road.

Joseph Davis was a founder of Christ Church Bexley and old Bexley School. This caused a bitter comment from the headmistress of Kogarah School, who accused wealthy landowners of trying to boost the sale of their land. Her school being capable of handling the population.

Many attempts have been made to demolish “Lydham Hall”.

It was recently described by a visitor from the ‘National Trust” as a jewel and a treasure hidden for years.

The Royal Australian Historical Society called there on their first official visit to the St. George District and regularly since. Other visitors have been St. George Historical Society, Parramatta Historical Society and Bankstown Historical Society.

“Lydham Hall” is on “Robinson’s Map of Historical Homes and Landmarks”.

It has one of the finest panoramic views of Sydney. Being on one of the highest ridges between Cooks River and Georges River, it has been unspoilt by Sydney’s skyscrapers and home units, as it overshadows them. Recent additions to the view are Gladesville Bridge and new T.C.N. tower. Now Roselands claim to have the highest point but Lydham Hall’s view stretches miles beyond.

A former owner protected the view by placing a covenant on homes built at the rear, when he subdivided. They are not allowed to build more than one storey.

Strange the view should be protected by a blind man. Could he see more than we can today?

This article was first published in the September 1970 edition of our magazine.

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by Gifford Eardley

Amongst the earliest settlers of the Rockdale area was Mr. James Beehag, a descendant of a French Huguenot farming family formerly known as Behague, who was born at Southminster, a village set amidst the wheatfields on the flat lands of the English country of Essex. This rural village is placed at a meeting of crossroads midway between the tidal River Crouch and the wider sea-estuary known as the Blackwater River, the shore-side shoals of the North Sea being about five miles eastward.

Together with his brother William and sister (later Mrs. E. Way of Messrs. E. Way and Company, formerly drapers in Pitt Street, Sydney, sited in the block between Market and King Streets) he came to Sydney about the year 1836. According to report James Beehag first settled on the site at present occupied by the George Street store of Messrs. David Jones, located at the south-western corner of the intersection of George Street and Barrack Street, almost immediately opposite the General Post Office. About 1838 he moved to what can now be described as north-western Canterbury where, by all accounts, James Beehag was the first to settle in this area. Here he developed a market garden in the vicinity of the Liverpool Road, the property having an area of some thirty acres. The district at that time was a primeval forest which ranged over the low hills and their intervening shallow slopes. It has been mentioned that fresh water was one of the problems against the local settlement and, perhaps the nearest permanent household supply was at the casuarina tree-fringed Cooks River, which flowed a few miles to the south of the Beehag property.

James Beehag, who was of the Presbyterian faith, married Miss Mary Burnett at Scots Church in York Street, Sydney, where the ceremony, held on May 4th, 1840, was conducted by the Reverend William McIntyre. Their first child, named Isaac, was born on July 18th, 1841, and baptised on July 25th of the same year. The family address at this period was simply Liverpool Road and the happy couple were listed as farmers. Other children of the marriage were – Margaret (who married Samuel Tattler), Robert, Gideon (who married Elizabeth Eggleston), Elizabeth (who married William Humphries) and James (who married Elizabeth Humphries).

In 1852 the Canterbury property was sold and the Beehag family moved to the wilds of West Botany where they obtained a triangular shaped block of land some seventy acres in extent. The northern alignment ranged along Bay Street, Rockdale, from its junction, at an apex corner with Rocky Point Road (now Princes Highway) eastwards to the western corner of Pat Moore’s Swamp, located about midway between the present West Botany Street and England Street at Brighton le Sands. The westernmost portion of this plot was largely taken up by a low sandstone hillock, now quarried away for the passage of Bay Street, which once sloped southwards to the later made alignment of Chapel Street. This portion of the property was of little use for farming purposes, consequently when the need arose for a site to erect a Wesleyan Chapel, about 1854, it was offered for sale to the chapel authorities. A small edifice was subsequently erected and provision made for a cemetery. This old-time chapel (and its adjacent Methodist Church of much later construction) still stands in good order, both being situated amidst a wealth of lovely trees, the outstanding feature in the shopping area now known as Rockdale.

According to at least one early map the Beehag grant extended eastwards beyond the swamplands to the western shores of Botany Bay, then an area of sand dunes covered by a dense forest of age-old gum trees and a wealth of picturesque coastal scrub ranging from geebungs to banksias. The new farmland, in its original state, was likewise covered with a forest of huge black-butt and blue-gums, intermixed with angophora trees on the drier slopes. The pellucid fresh water stream, known as Black Creek (or by the less distinctive name of Muddy Creek), flowed through the estate, its banks being lined with feathery-leaved, sombre-hued, casuarina trees. It was hard work to fell the trees of the forest, burn their trunks and branches, remove the stumps, and drain and level, and then plough, the rich fertile land thus exposed for the cultivation of vegetables. No roads went by and a circuitous bush track wound its way northwards, avoiding where possible the marshy tracts bordering the western shore of Black Greek to gain the Cooks River Dam at Tempe. Here a connection was made with the old Cooks River Road which gave access to Sydneytown and its market place.

A small four-roomed cottage of locally burnt bricks was built, a tiny separate kitchen being placed at the rear in accordance with ancient custom. This double-fronted home possessed a shingled roof of silver-grey slats cut from the local she-oaks, and its four rooms had inter-connecting doorways without the benefit of a divisional hallway, In due course a large two-storied weatherboard packing shed was constructed at the eastern side of the little homestead to which lean-to’s were added to house the stables, feed-room, and the two-wheeled dray.

In addition to what may be regarded as his Bay Street estate, James Beehag was fortunate in obtaining another grant of similar land on the lower slopes of Kogarah Hill, east of Rocky Point Road and reaching to the border of Pat Moores Swamp. This land was also suitable for market garden purposes and portion of it, at the eastern end of the present Toomevara Street, is still under cultivation by a family of Chinese people. It is not known at this late date as to whether James Beehag undertook the development of his southern estate of fifty-four acres.

Mary Beehag died about 1853, when the eldest child, Isaac, was twelve years old, and the youngest, James, had attained his second birthday. It was a sad blow to the family to be bereft of their mother, and it is understandable that in due course the husband married Maria Hamilton, A second family eventuated, five in number, which comprised William, Samuel, Arthur, George, and Mary (who married Mr. Spackman).

Social conditions in the West Botany area of somewhat isolated farmlands were very much on the primitive side to say the least in the mid-period of last century. The community were beset by all manner of feuding and petty thieving. For instance, James Beehag’s cow strayed from its pastures into the surrounding bush and was never seen alive after it had been posted as missing. A search party later discovered that the animal had been shot, its carcass dismembered, and its flayed skin burnt in a fire, one of the culprits giving evidence of the theft and the slaughter. Then again the eldest son, Isaac, became the proud owner of a pony, which inadvertently strayed into a neighbouring market garden situated at the north- western corner of the present intersection of West Botany Street and Bay Street. The farmer of this land was not amused at the intrusion and subsequent eating of his precious vegetables and succeeded, in his rage, in slashing the pony’s jaws apart with an axe, an injury which caused the poor animal to be destroyed. These unfortunate happenings, amongst numerous others, did little, to create neighbourly feelings amongst those concerned with their livelihood in the immediate area.

When Isaac was a sturdy lad of eighteen he was engaged in cutting firewood at the Black Forest, later known as Gannon’s Forest and now as Hurstville. This wood, cut to a size suitable for domestic stoves, was taken by horse dray into Sydney and hawked through the back streets for the benefit of the housewives. It was necessary for the lad to sell his load, as the financial return was so essential for the sustenance of the large family at Bay Street, He dare not bring back the load to the farm for this reason.

James Beehag (senior) retired from business as a market gardener in 1883, and went to live in a two-storied house in the Arncliffe section of West Botany Street. Here he largely devoted himself to municipal affairs, being elected an alderman of the first West Botany Council, and in the second and third years of office he filled the position of Mayor. In the fourth year he resigned, but in the fifth year he again occupied the Mayoral chair for another two years, after which he resigned from the Council. At this period he was engaged, with William Hamilton Beehag, the eldest son of his second marriage, in the operation of a market garden located in West Botany Street almost opposite the intersection of Wickham Street, James Beehag (senior) died on September 10th, 1894, and was interred at the Wesleyan portion of the Rookwood Cemetery.

With his demise the estate and garden at the southern side of Bay Street was divided amongst the children of his first marriage, Isaac, Margaret, Elizabeth, and James (junior), all of whom continued to live on their portions of the once so extensive property. However, Robert and Gideon moved to St. Peters and Newtown. Margaret lived at the original cottage, later moving to a more commodious residence erected nearby. Her eldest daughter, Eliza Tattler, eventually married Mr. Edward Draper, a nurseryman, whose family still carry on the business. Strangely enough the original home is more or less intact, together with the large barn, but the second house on the property had been dismantled.

The aforementioned subdivision resulted in the formation of a short dead-end thoroughfare which was named James Street in honour of James Beehag (senior). This street gave access to several of the subdivided properties and was extended, under the title of West Botany Street, southwards to link with President Avenue at Kogarah. The erstwhile rural area is now occupied by all manner of factories and only a portion of the swamp land, together with Draper’s Nursery, remain to give an inkling to the wise of the former activities of that life-long gardener, James Beehag (senior).

For her kind assistance in the preparation of this article, the author is indebted to Mrs. Mary Ann Beaman, a charming lady approaching her ninetieth year, who is a grand-daughter of James Beehag.

This article was first published in the September 1970 edition of our magazine.

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