Minutes of Public Meeting

Held on Sunday 12 November 2006

Venue: Linnwood, Byron Road, Guildford

Welcome & Apologies

Dorothy Warwick opened the meeting at 2.12pm and welcomed all in attendance.

Apologies: John & Christine McKenna, Michael Griggs, Irie Olde, Audrey Murphy, Roslyn Day, Joe Tripodi, John Warwick, Flo McMaster, Pam Zopf

Confirmation of Minutes of Public Meeting held on Sunday 10 September

Moved by Coral Hamilton, Seconded by James Grainda, that the Minutes of the Public Meeting held on Sunday 10 September 2006, which were mailed or emailed to members, be accepted by the Meeting.

Correspondence

Correspondence inwards and outwards, as per the agenda, was accepted by the Meeting. Dorothy Warwick advised Members that the letters to the NSW Heritage Office would be addressed in her President’s Report.

Business Arising

There was no business arising from the previous minutes.

President’s Report

Good afternoon and welcome to Linnwood once again. Time to catch up on all that’s been happening in the past couple of months.

Keeping with what has become tradition, we will start with ‘show & tell’ where we acknowledge any donations we have received since last meeting – and what a list there is! I won’t be able to ‘show’ you these things individually as there are too many, but as you can see, we have displayed them all on the tables for you to have a look at afterwards.

We have been overwhelmed with what has been donated recently so please bear with me as we work through the list:-

• From Michelle Thomson we have received a box of tablecloths. Some we will be able to use, but there are quite a few that have been beautifully embroidered by an elderly relative, and these we will put away for display purposes

• June Gerard has donated a book “The Ladies Book of Home Treatment” of circa 1924 which makes very interesting reading!

• Guildford Rotary have donated another book to go with their collection – “The Story of Rotary in Australia 1921 – 1971”

• Leonie Talbot has donated a red Box Brownie Camera, circa 1936, a Kodak folding Brownie Six-20 circa 1930-40, a Brownie Flash II camera in it’s own case circa 1959, and has also loaned us a very special Illuminated Scripture Text & Birthday Book found in 1954 when they moved into their house in Guildford. This is a truly beautiful little book with some dates in there as far back as 1875.

• From some donations to our recent Trash’n’Treasure we found some vintage dressmaking patterns which we put away for display.

• From Laurie Thomas we received a desk light, which will come in handy when we are doing the cataloguing – it’s often hard to see some of the trademarks on some items without a good light

• Kevin & Jill Ryan have kindly donated a heater, electric kettle and a microwave oven – and we will most definitely be able to put all three items to good use!

• John Warwick has donated another 2 Persian rugs – you will see a lovely green one in our book room and a nice, smaller pink one out in the side kitchen. They certainly make a difference to both rooms. John also donated some lovely little old-fashioned lamps, which Adriana also grabbed for the book room – the difference in there now is amazing – it’s quite cosy in there now – you really feel like settling in and having a good read!

• Councillor Allan Ezzy, who attended our last meeting has kindly donated a Kodak ‘home’ photo developing kit, still in its original box and a lovely brass candlestick holder. With the number of cameras donated and now this developing kit, we will be able to put on a really interesting photography display.

• You will have noticed some clothing hanging behind you, and these items are just beautiful. Katherine Cordatos from the Art & Craft Society has donated her mother’s wedding dress of 1935, together with a nightdress and a 1920’s style ‘flappers’ petticoat, together with a lingerie sachet. I’m not sure about the wedding dress, but the other items were made by her mother. Just gorgeous. When you have a look at them, please don’t touch as we need to keep them as clean as possible, due to their age.

• From Margaret McKay Warn (Scottish House) we have received a pair of crocheted gloves, a 1978 calendar to copy, it has some lovely old photos on it, and many photos of her family when living on Woodville Rd. Guildford. We have been able to scan and copy these photos for our files.

• Beverly Donsworth (African Violets) has donated some lovely hand embroidered doilies,

• Our friend Kevin Woodward has donated another long list of items, some of which are on display today – in appreciation of Kevin’s many contributions to our memorabilia, we have decided to create the Kevin Woodward Collection, and all items donated by Kevin will form part of that display. We are indebted to Kevin for his generosity in donating so many items from his family home.

• Allan Mulvaney (Encaustic Artist) has donated a painting of Linnwood he has done using beeswax – amazing!

• Florence Sumner has donated a lovely old baby’s cradle, used by her family, together with an old school desk – found on the street during a council clean up! I’m sure many of you can remember sitting at one of these. The inkwell in it was bought separately on a trip to Tasmania.

• Ann Ravenscroft has donated a men’s leather shirt collar box

• And from an anonymous donor through the post we received an envelope full of photos of Guildford in the early days, together with a copy of a Parish Map with a few local landholders highlighted.

• Also in the mail we have received fro Bill Grose (Gaelic singer/musician) a copy of the debut CD of the Gaelic band “Eileen Mor” entitled ‘35 Degrees South’

• And last but by no means least – from Jean Shaw, one of our older members who has been with us right from the beginning, and I’m sure many of you know, recently had a fall and broke her hip, and has had to move from her family home, we have received an incredible amount of things :- a silver cruet stand, butter dish, metal fruit compote, an Adderley cake plate which had been broken and ‘professionally’ mended – it’s really quite interesting how they did it, stuck the two pieces together and then put two huge metal staples in it! Another plate with similar pattern, silver cake plate and fork, a floral jardiniere, which is unfortunately quite badly chipped from T.R. & Co. England (and we are researching this company for more details), an old Johnson Bros. Carving plate, 2 white serving plates, the lid of an old serving bowl, a ‘Craven A’ cigarette tin, a 6’ x3’ bookcase (already in the book room), a Halstrom refrigerator believed to be about 50 years old and still working (in the kitchen) a Crown ovenware pie dish, a desert serving bowl and 4 smaller bowls – Alfred Meakin ‘Marigold’ pattern – probably from the 1930’s, a Kenwood Chefette mixmaster and utensils, a “Prilect’ British made electric iron still in it’s original METAL tin, with instructions, a box of AHA glasses – a couple of them with the Guildford Hotel stamp on them (but don’t tell anyone!), 2 old bandaid boxes, a rug beater (remember those?), a couple of small tins , R.L. Bell & co. of London & Carnations Corn Caps and a Samsung camera with instruction booklet, and I think that’s it !

• Just today, Margaret MacKay Warn has also donated a 1936 Anniversary Service Hymn Sheet from the Guildford Methodist Church and has also loaned us the 1988 Bicentennial Issue of the Parramatta Advertiser – so we will be copying many of the articles from this paper for display purposes.

• Joe Allen has brought along 2 paintings he has done, which I am sure you will recognise. The first is of Andrew, one of the NSW Corps of Marines, in full uniform, and the other is of Linnwood itself on an Open Day with visitors coming and going – even Russ Werner is recognisable, cooking at the BBQ! Many thanks to Joe for doing these and bringing them along for us to see.

What a tremendous addition ALL these items will make to our collection – and we thank all these wonderful donors for their generosity. Mind you, we on the cataloguing committee are now completely snowed under, but we have been putting in some extra days over the past weeks and hopefully are finally making progress with the backlog of items.

Also, we recently received this Certificate of Appreciation from Pioneers, for supporting their Footie Final Day, held here at Linnwood. Pioneers have been hiring this back room occasionally for some of their functions, when they invite other like groups for a social function and we are more than happy to be supporting them.

Now, after all that, on to other things:-

• Last meeting we mentioned that we would like to use the Bushells money and other donation money for a special project to have the 2 tub chairs restored – more easily said than done unfortunately – we have found it difficult to find an upholsterer who will actually come out and give us a quote, when they say they will come! – But we will persevere, probably by taking the chairs to them, if that’s what it takes!

• We have had a couple of ex-Linnwood girls come back for a visit and as always, the stories we heard were of great interest to us. All who come back are disappointed that we don’t have a book about the history of their time here, so that is something we should look at doing in the future. Our George McCredie book is coming along – it is being edited at the moment and then we will be looking at finally having it published. With thanks to Pat O’Brien, who did some research at State Records, we have found some interesting plans and letters, a couple of which we have been able to include in the book.

• We had our annual Trash’n’Treasure sale at the October Open House, but due to a gale blowing up around lunch-time, we thought our numbers were a little down. December will be a display of our donated memorabilia which should be interesting, seeing it all out together.

• Our Calendar of Events for 2007 is out – although there are no exhibits confirmed at this stage, you will be able to put the dates on your calendars so you won’t miss anything!

• Don’t forget to book for this years Christmas Dinner, to be held after the December Open House day. Helen has the booking sheet for you to put your names down and you an also pay today if you wish. The cost will be $10 for members and $12 for non-members.

• We have had 3 tours through in recent times, and all were suitably impressed with Linnwood and its history.

• The Tapestry Guild held their two day exhibition here in late October and the Friends were asked to do the catering on both days. The exhibition was absolutely stunning and I have some photos here for you to have a look through and we hope the days were a success for the Guild. Thank you to those who gave of their time to help over that weekend.

• I recently went to a community reception at Old Government House and was pleased to see 2 of our community members, Ralph Britten and David Williams receive Premier’s Awards for their many years of community service. Our own Gerry O’Brien will also be receiving a NSW Heritage Volunteers Award at Government House this week for his work for Mays Hill Cemetery and we offer him our sincere congratulations.

• Holroyd Council has invited us to submit the annual Gift of Time card – an approximation of how many hours are volunteered by the Friends to the community over the past 12 months. Well when we looked at it, we passed last years total easily, clocking up over 3000 hours ! What an achievement – many thanks to all of those who contributed their time of the past year.

• Unfortunately, with all the good news there always seems to be some not so good as well, and as reported at the last meeting, the level of vandalism on the property has been escalating over recent times, with McCredie Cottage wearing the brunt of most of it. The Heritage Office has written to Linnwood’s immediate neighbours informing them of the decision they have made, that to protect the property, they will be erecting fencing along the Byron Road and Tamplin Road frontages. I have a copy of the letter here if anyone would like to read it. Unfortunately, this will mean that those local residents who use the property for walking their dogs, etc., will not have access to the property outside of business hours. This decision was not made lightly as they realise the effect this will have on the local community, but, something had to be done to protect the property in the long term. We were also made aware that the fence on the Tamplin Road frontage will not be along the existing fence line, but on the new proposed boundary, in readiness for the sale of land in the future (the State Government will still take 50% of the sale proceeds).

• The committee is concerned that the amount of land to be excised from the estate is considerably more than we had been led to believe and has written to the Heritage Office on behalf of the Friends, expressing that concern. It appears that we will be losing about 20% of the site, some 10,400 square metres, indicating that the development may be more of a villa development, rather than individual housing. We have also written asking that some vehicular gates be part of the new fence, for, with losing so much of the rear of the property, parking on our Open House days could become a problem. If we were able to open some gates to the rear, for the time available until the sale goes through and building commences, we could still make use of the land for parking. Pioneers will also be affected by this, and I believe that they also will be writing to the Heritage Office.

If you have any questions or queries, I will try and answer with as much information that I have.

On that note, I will finish – sorry it’s been such a long report – and we will carry on with the rest of the meeting and I hope you enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Thank you.

Treasurer’s Report

In the absence of John McKenna, Dorothy Warwick presented the Treasurer’s Report.

Income for the months of September and October was $377 and $2,901.80 respectively, whilst expenditure was $10 in September and $1,297.50 in October. Total income for the two months was $3,278.80 and total expenditure was $1,307.50, leaving a profit of $1,971.30. The October Open Day raised approximately $1,750, and the catering for the 2-day Tapestry Guild exhibition raised approximately $580.

The September opening balance was $24,655.52, and the closing October balance was $26,386.89. There is also approximately $1,000 cash and cheques yet to be banked.

As our bank balance has improved over the past couple of years, it is the Committee’s recommendation that $15,000 of our bank account be put into a linked account that will pay better interest than our current general account.

Dorothy again stated that money is earmarked for restoration of anything in the house, but until we get approval to do those things we would like to transfer some of the money to an investment account.

Moved by John Nash, Seconded by Yvonne Tattersall, that the recommended amount of $15,000 be transferred to an investment account.

Dorothy advised that the Trash ‘n’ Treasure did not raise as much as we normally raise, so we may consider booking the little kiosk in Merrylands once or twice next year. All the items left over from October’s Trash ‘n’ Treasure have been donated to Pioneers who are in turn having a Garage Sale on the north lawn at our December Open House.

Update from Catalogue Committee

In the absence of Christine McKenna, Dorothy advised the meeting that the committee is putting in lots of extra hours (two days a week lately) trying to get all the donations catalogued, and they will continue to do so until the December Open House. Everyone will be really surprised to see exactly what we have.

Update from Gardening Committee

In the absence of Pam Zopf, Coral Hamilton advised the meeting that watering the gardens is all that the committee can do at the moment. A working bee is being held on Sunday 19 November.

General Business

Dorothy Warwick advised that there is still no progress on the rose garden which will be dedicated to the girls, and while the current spate of vandalism continues we won’t be planting any more plants – we have already had a number of plants stolen. We have received approval in principle from the NSW Heritage Office for the rose garden, however this will take time and we will wait until the fencing has been erected and the property is more secure.

An ex-girl who came to visit Linnwood last week had some photos of her time here – the statue on the driveway was still there, and there were lots of geraniums everywhere – on the southern side there was a little bed near the cellar doors and near the summer house was a garden completely full of roses, as well as the rose garden around the fountain. The lady remembered where the school rooms were and where the girls had their own gardens near where the dormitory buildings are now. We have offered to pay to have the photos copied.

Guest Speaker

Dorothy introduced and welcomed Frank Knowles from the Lane Cove Historical Society who will talk about “Carisbrook” at Lane Cove.

Frank apologised that Susan McLean was unable to come today – Susan is Carisbrook’s historian and conservator and has written a book on the history of the house.

Lane Cove has five peninsulars onto the Harbour, and Carisbrook is situated on the last peninsular west of the Heads. Before the arrival of the First Fleet, the local Aboriginal people used the harbour and rivers for fishing, and there were many canoes going up and down the river and peninsulars.

The house was built on an 18-acre grant which was originally acquired by John Clarke in 1835. He went to Norfolk Island to get the timber, and when he returned, smallpox had arrived in Sydney which killed many of the Aboriginals who had no immunity to the diseases that were brought into the Colony.

The first industry in Lane Cove was the timber industry, and Burns Bay Road, on which Carisbrook is situated, was the old Bullock track. Frank showed a wonderful old black and white photo of a bullock wagon on Burns Bay Road.

By 1861 John Clark’s land with the adjoining Linley grant were owned by Rachael Brooks (formerly Mrs Dodds, a widow with land and money) and her second husband Thomas (a Customs officer who was also a musician who had played at the court of King William IV).

Carisbrook (named after the palace on the Isle of Wight which was built not long after 1066) was built in 1883 and is made of honey coloured sandstone which was quarried across the road. Governor Macquarie made sure that the lovely sandstone was used in buildings, and at that time there were many skilled stonemasons and woodworkers in the Colony. The roof is slate. Carisbrook is of assymetrical Italianate design.

Thomas’ sons went to the Boer War and brought back jacaranda trees and clivia plants – these are still in the grounds of Carisbrook. The original timber fences around the property were replaced by sandstone fences with wrought iron brought in from another property “Amalfi”.

The property was purchased by Lane Cove Council in 1969, and the Friends of Carisbrook look after the house and gardens. Frank showed photos of the inside of the house as it looked in the early 1900’s, and colour photos of how the rooms look now. The Friends are still in the process of restoring the furniture as funds become available, and also acquiring furniture and memorabilia.

All the implements etc in the kitchen have been loaned by descendants of the then local tenants, and are all of the era of the house. The Friends are about to start restoration of the original well which at the moment is beneath a garden bed.

Carisbrook is open every Sunday, Wednesday afternoon and Thursday. They do take group bookings. They also sell home-made jams which are made from lemon and orange trees grown on the property. The house also has a (Council funded) live-in manager.

Website: www.lanecove.nsw.gov.au and search Carisbrook.

Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Friends of Linnwood will be held on Sunday 11 February 2007 at 2.00pm. Guest Speaker to be advised.

Raffle

The raffle was won by Pam Zopf.

Meeting Close

There being no further business, the meeting closed at 3.42pm.