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.
