OUR HERITAGE AT RISK - NEW SOUTH WALES- 2008

Place:   Rippon Grange / John Williams Memorial Hospital 35-45 Water Street, Wahroonga

Threat:  Inappropriate re-development and loss of heritage values

Rippon Grange has significance as a predominantly intact Federation Queen Anne residence with landscaped period gardens. Designed by Howard Joseland for Frederick George, the property has strong associations with the Sargood Family, Rippon Lea in Melbourne, Ernest Robert Williams, and social significance through its use as a children’s hospital.

The house is a fine example of a large Federation Queen Anne house, largely intact, set within a grand and beautifully landscaped garden. The gardens retain considerable aesthetic significance illustrating intact features of Federation garden architecture and landscape design such as croquet lawn and grotto, summerhouse, glass house and wire trellises. The grounds retain much of their original layout with sweeping paths and driveways providing the setting for the recreational features. The grounds also featured a large vegetable garden, an orchard and a fowl run illustrating the desire for a degree of self-sufficiency by the early owners

(See Nomination Form for more details)

Statement of Risk:

The Site, especially the gardens, is under threat of redevelopment, with an inappropriate number of new buildings proposed in the grounds, which would disrupt the already reduced curtilage of the original building.

Degree of Risk:       Immediate risk – no solution agreed

Threats/Risks:        Destruction (of the gardens)

Fate/outcome:         Suffering

Desired Outcome / Vision:

That a use for the site be found in which the original building and its curtilage (including the gardens) remains intact. It is rare that even this amount of remaining grounds survived previous rounds of subdivision and development in this suburb. It is important that they be retained intact.