The National Trust nominates Heritage at Risk for World Heritage Day 18 April 2008
The National Trust NSW calls for protection of at risk heritage on World Heritage Day.
The Trust nominated a railway workshop, former coal mining village and an historic home and its landscaped grounds as the three most at risk heritage sites in NSW.
The Eveleigh Railway Workshops are a fine example of Australia’s industrial heritage, covering over 60 acres where manufacturing of steam locomotives began in 1908. Today the Eveleigh Large Erecting Shop is one of the finest examples of an historic railway engineering workshop anywhere in the world, complete with a wide range of late 19th century and early 20th engineering machinery including forge installations, cranes, power and hydraulic systems.
The National Trust considerers the Large Erecting Shop to be one of Australia’s rarest and most important industrial heritage items and is concerned about proposals for it to be demolished for multi-storey development. National Trust NSW Conservation Director, Graham Quint says the Trust has been lobbying for many years to preserve this important part of Australia’s railway history.
“This is the oldest and longest continuously operating railway workshops in Australia and the Large Erecting Shop is still functioning to service steam railway locomotives and rolling stock,” he said.
“Several of the buildings within the Eveleigh site have been redeveloped for non railway uses while others have been rezoned for mulit-storey development under the Redfern Waterloo Authority’s Built Environment Plan. The Trust believes that the Large Erecting Shop and its role in maintaining a collection of locomotives, rolling stock and equipment must be preserved. Preservation of Eveleigh is important to preserve our railway heritage in Sydney, and to ensure we have a facility to restore and maintain steam locomotives, and to train apprentices in these increasingly rare skills,” Mr Quint says.
Catherine Hill Bay is a picturesque former coal mining village, located on an isolated stretch of the NSW coast, 30km south of Newcastle. It comprises around 100 simple buildings, some dating back to 1870, in a bushland setting. The township has a rich heritage as a coastal coal mining town with many of its original public buildings and homes surviving. It has also been recognized as an area high in biodiversity with threatened and endangered species and rare plant communities,
The National Trust (NSW) is strongly opposed to the current proposals from two developers (Rosecorp and Coal & Allied) to build 900 homes. Minister for Planning Frank Sartor has invoked Part 3(A) of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act with regard to Catherine Hill Bay. This legislation gives the Minister the power to override State heritage and environmental protection legislation and enable development at Catherine Hill Bay to proceed. National Trust (NSW) Conservation Director, Graham Quint says the developments, one of which will dominate the coastal headland of the village, will increase the number of homes at Catherine Hill Bay 10 fold. “The Trust has major concerns about the environmental impact of the development, and the destruction of the historical value of the tiny village,” he said.
A decision is expected imminently on the Rosecorp proposal to develop 600 dwellings on the headland.
The National Trust also nominated the Rippon Grange estate at 35 Water Street, Wahroonga, as a heritage at risk item. Rippon Grange is a fine Federation/Queen Anne residence with landscaped garden. It was designed by architects Sulman and Joseland and constructed for Frederick George Sargood, son of the important Victorian warehouseman and Parliamentarian Frederick Sargood, who built the well known house “Rippon Lea” in Elsternwick, Melbourne. In 2001 the Trust nominated Rippon Grange, Wahroonga, for listing on the State Heritage Register.
The significance of Rippon Grange is not confined to the house itself but is also evident in its extensive gardens which are largely in the Arts and Crafts style. The intact eastern and south eastern areas of the gardens are also historically and aesthetically significant to a high degree as a rare example of Federation garden architecture and landscape design which has survived the extensive subdivision of Wahroonga and is rare in Sydney’s consolidated suburbs.
The National Trust considers the proposed redevelopment of Rippon Grange as highly inappropriate. The development would destroy the original approach to the house and much of the state heritage significance of this most important part of the arts and crafts style garden. The overall scale of the development would have a major impact on the garden and the heritage value of the house. In addition the development would see the removal of a tract of Blue Gum Forest (listed as a critically endangered ecological community). The National Trust believes adaptive re-use of Rippon Grange and its grounds should take a much more sympathetic approach.
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