Redbanks Road 37 Willaston
| Place type: | Building |
|---|---|
| Address: | 37 Redbanks Road |
| Town or Locality: | Willaston |
DESCRIPTION:
This single-storey, double-transverse gable symmetrical mid-Victorian cottage is constructed of rubble sandstone, brought to course and tuckpointed to the façade, rendered to the side walls and above verandah. The M-shaped roof is clad with corrugated galvanised iron with moulded coping to the gable parapet walls and a plain brick chimney to the rear. The façade features a central brick arch headed door with timber-framed, panelled timber door with fanlight and timber-framed, doublehung sash windows to either side. The concave verandah is clad with corrugated metal and supported on square timber posts with cast-iron lace frieze and corner brackets. The slightly elevated concrete verandah is accessed by central splayed steps with rendered side walls and simple piers. A sandstone rubble fence with arched, rendered coping and face brick piers defines the street frontage, with a central woven wire gate. A rubble sandstone outbuilding, with red face brick quoins and oriel, to the Jane Street boundary is also of note. Additions include an earlier lean-to to match original detailing, as well as later lean-to and pergola to the rear.
STATEMENT OF HERITAGE VALUE:
Likely constructed sometime in the 1880s for William Ayling and his wife Emma, this cottage demonstrates the type of residential development which occurred in the 1878 subdivision of Waltham. It is a rare and intact example of an early dwelling in this area. It is typical in form and scale of a Gawler Worker’s cottage, and features superior workmanship in the construction and detailing of the brick and stone.
BRIEF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
The original plan of Gawler Town prepared by Light, Finniss and Co in 1839 was extended as additional townships were added over the next two decades. These townships included: Willaston in 1848; Gawler East in 1849; Bertha in 1850; Evanston in 1853; Gawler North, Gawler West and Bassett Town in 1857; and Gawler South in 1858. Later smaller subdivisions included the Edith/Blanche Street area of Gawler East in 1873, Gulf View in 1876, and Waltham in 1878. A later stage of development saw the creation of Olive Hill in 1891 and Berrett Town in 1910. By the turn of the twentieth century the town boundaries had extended into adjoining farming lands and larger allotments were gradually being subdivided and developed.
The Township of Waltham was the initiative of Henry Edward Bright MP owner of section 134 Hundred of Mudla Wilrra. The 79 acre section located to the north-west of Willaston had been advertised for sale in December 1868 by its previous owner George Neil, who had applied to have it brought under the Real Property Act two years earlier. On 12 December 1868 an advertisement appeared in the Bunyip for the sale of Mr George Neil’s property section 134 Hundred of Mudla Wirra, located immediately to the north of Willaston and containing 79 acres. He had applied two years earlier to have this section brought under the Real Property Act. The property was purchased by Henry Edward Bright (1819-1904), who had emigrated with his young family from Essex in 1849. The family settled at Gawler and his first employment had been driving bullock teams between Gawler and Burra. Within 20 years he had risen to becoming a member of Parliament, representing the district of Stanley in the House of Assembly from 1865 to 1875, and the district of Wooroora from 1875 to 1884. From 1873 to 1875 he was Commissioner of Public Works in the Government of Arthur Blyth and in 1885 was elected to the Legislative of which he was a member until 1891.
In 1878 Bright subdivided part of section 134 into 43 allotments, laid out as the Township of Waltham. The name was adopted from a town in Essex and is believed to derive from either the Anglo -Saxon wealtham - ‘enclosure in the weald’ [wood], or weald-ham - ‘a forest homestead or enclosure’. Allotments were offered at an auction conducted by J C Wilkinson on 27 January 1879, at Frankel’s Exchange Hotel in Gawler. The advertisement read in part as follows: ‘This Land is beautifully situated, and for Salubrity of Position, Grandeur of View, and General Excellence, is not to be equalled in the Neighbourhood of Gawler’.
H E Bright died in 1904 and his second son, Thomas R Bright, as his executor, created Waltham Abbey, in 1907, as an extension to Waltham. In the early twentieth century there were several dairies associated with the area. These subdivisions are now both included in Gawler and the names have disappeared.
A Certificate of Title to Allotments 12 and 13, portion of section 134 in the Hundred of Mudla Wirra, County of Gawler, was issued to Henry William Ayling on 24 October 1879. He was a native of the district, having been born in Willaston in 1858. He married Emma Margaret Causby in 1880. His father William Ayling was a stonemason in Willaston and Henry followed in his trade. The stone and brick cottage built on Allotment 12 is of an early construction date and may have been built by Henry as his matrimonial home. It seems that he and Emma moved away in 1896. At the time of the death of their son, also named Henry William (aged 21) in 1907, and their daughter Elsie’s wedding in 1909, their residence is given as ‘Bridge View’, Willaston. In 1909 it was reported that H W Ayling had purchased A H Gartrell’s house of six rooms at Waltham for £455, but by the time Emma died in 1919 they were living at Hindmarsh. Henry died at Wallaroo in 1935 was buried in Willaston.
The property was transferred to George Wright Telfer of Willaston, a farmer in 1896, then six months later to Johan Heinrich Schneider of Reeves Plains, also a farmer, who leased it for ten years to John Henry Williams. Johan Heinrich Schneider died in 1902, and the title passed to Johan Marin Schneider of North Adelaide, gentleman, and Johan Heinrich Schneider of Reeves Plains, farmer as executors. In 1906 the title was transferred to John Henry Williams of Gawler, grocer, and after his death in 1913 to his widow Louisa Jane Williams. She sold it to Eva Alice Atyeo, of Gawler, married woman in 1935. In 1965 title was transferred to Gerald Laurence Carmody, assistant town clerk of Willaston and his wife Lynette Rae Carmody. The two allotments were transferred to separate titles in 1969, with Allotment 12, on the corner of Jane Street and Redbanks Road and containing the dwelling being retained in the ownership of Gerald Laurence Carmody.
Please <click here> for photos of 37 Redbanks Road Willaston.
Acknowledgments
This report has been prepared by the following people:
• Nancy Cromar (Flightpath Architects)
• Deborah Morgan (Flightpath Architects)
• Kate Paterson (Flightpath Architects)
• Douglas Alexander (Flightpath Architects)
The study team would like to acknowledge the assistance of the following people:
• David Petruzzella (Strategic Planner; Town of Gawler)
• Jacinta Weiss (Cultural Heritage Centre Coordinator; Town of Gawler)
• Jane Strange (Senior Development and Strategic Policy Officer; Town of Gawler)
Gawler History Team Inc. thanks:
Flightpath Architects, Ryan Viney and the Town of Gawler for allowing us access to this important document of Gawler History.
www.flightpatharchitects.com.au
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References
- Hignett & Company Gawler Heritage Study Stage 1 December 1981
- State Library of SA: Frederick Foote Turner BRG 178/1 Series 1
- Place Names of South Australia (accessed 27 February 2020) https://published.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/placenamesofsouthaustralia/W.pdf
- Advertiser 26 April 1907 p.2
- Bunyip 12 December 1868 p.4
- Critic 8 September 1909 p.35
- Gawler Standard 4 Jan 1879 p.2
- Register 21 December 1866 p4; 16 July 1909 p.4
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