1 DRAFT BRONTE HOUSE Plan of Management Bronte House Plan of Management Program: Waverley Life Date created: August 2007 Date revised: July 2015 Date adopted by Council: 3 CONTENTS Introduction and Purpose 4 The Land 4 Classification 4 Cultural significance 6 Statement of significance 6 Ownership 8 Zoning and heritage 8 History 10 Purchase by Waverley Council 10 Previous Plan of Management 10 Previous lease arrangements 10 Present use and condition 11 Present use 11 Layout and condition 11 Future use and development 12 Management of the land 12 Appendices 15 Appendix A: General guidelines for the maintenance of historic houses. 16 Appendix B: The Land Deposited Plan 632454 17 Appendix C: Site maps of Bronte House and grounds 18 Appendix D: Condition and Dilapidation Report, Clive Lucas, Stapleton & Partners Pty Ltd. 9 March 2015. Attached separately Appendix E: Aboriginal site survey study, prepared in December 2014 by Dominic Steele Consulting Archaeology. Attached separately Appendix F: Bronte House Conservation Management Plan, prepared by Clive Lucas, Stapleton & Partners Pty Ltd. Adopted by Council in 2014. Attached separately Appendix G: Bronte House Garden Report and Landscape Plan, prepared by Place That Plant Pty Ltd 10 March 2015. Attached separately Bronte House Plan of Management 4 INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE Bronte House is one of the oldest Australian Heritage Commissions substantial and contain a wide houses in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, Register of the National Estate variety of plants which provide a built between 1843 and 1845. Set 1978, and the State Heritage real showcase at different times of amid two acres of rolling, park-like Register in 1999. the year. grounds and nestled into Bronte Gully, tenants enjoy a private and The house underwent major The purpose of this Plan of picturesque setting adjoining a refurbishment in 2014 and was Management is to guide the beachfront reserve. restored to its full splendour. It management of the property, consists of 3─4 bedrooms, a study, particularly with regard to Waverley Bronte House and grounds was three bathrooms, a lounge, dining Councils’ lease arrangements and sold to Waverley Council in 1948 room, a separate kitchen and open heritage requirements. and the land was listed on the verandas; the gardens are also THE LAND This Plan of Management applies It is the whole of the land within The Bronte House Garden and to the property known as ‘Bronte Lot 1 of Deposited Plan 632454 Landscape Report (Appendix House’ and located at 470 Bronte (Appendix B). G) forms part of this Plan of Road, Bronte (‘the Land’). Management. CLASSIFICATION The Land has been classified by the Act concerning the use and Government (General) Regulation Waverley Council (‘Council’), as management of community land 2005 and the guidelines provided community land under the Local apply and this Plan of Management by the Department of Local Government Act, 1993 (‘the Act’). has been prepared in accordance Government. with those sections, the Local This means that Sections 35-54 of Bronte House Plan of Management 5 Bronte House Plan of Management 6 CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE By resolution on 25 July 2000, STATEMENT OF While no Aboriginal archaeological Council declared the Land to be SIGNIFICANCE sites have been identified at Bronte an area of cultural significance. House and garden, or in Bronte The Aboriginal country at Bronte Gully itself, the house was built Council has categorised the had undergone a dynamic in an ‘Aboriginal site favourable’ Land as being an area of cultural environmental history for many tens location on top of an elevated significance under Section 36D of of thousands of years before the topographic position useful for the Act because Council considers land was alienated and built upon views and communication that that the dwelling known as ‘Bronte in the 1840s. In this context, Bronte overlooked a steep sided east- House’, together with the gardens as a ‘place’ has been situated facing sandstone coastal valley that within the curtilage of the dwelling, within many different ‘settings’ in was drained by a freshwater creek. are of historical and cultural the past and Aboriginal people will While organised ‘gully hunting’ of significance to the Waverley area. have routinely used and probably land animals can only be inferred to The Bronte House Conservation helped shape the character of have possibly taken place at Bronte Management Plan was adopted in Bronte through traditional mosaic in the past, there is little doubt September 2014 (Appendix F). burning techniques to increase that the place will have contained animal and plant abundance and numerous rock overhangs for In addition, an Aboriginal study long-term sustainability. At times, shelter and for creating painted was prepared in December 2014 the ‘place’ was a sheltered coastal and stencilled before the sides of by Dominic Steele Consulting gully much like today, and at others the gully were developed, extensive Archaeology (Appendix E). it was a small inland valley within sandstone platforms for engraving, a broader coastal hinterland plain and the immediate proximity of This Aboriginal study was endorsed that extended across the now sandy beaches and rocky shores by Council in April 2015. submerged continental shelf and for fishing and shell fish gathering The Land was listed on the was situated many kilometres will have provided a diversity of Australian Heritage Commission’s from the ‘old coast’. Aboriginal predictable resources. A relatively Register of the National Estate in people lived continuously on this sparse white population up to the 1978, was made the subject of a land and successfully adapted 1830s may have allowed Aboriginal Permanent Conservation Order throughout the major climatic people to continue visit and use under the Heritage Act 1977 changes that took place during Bronte and maintain access to both in 1981, and was listed on the the last 30,000 years or more coast and woodland environments State Heritage Register under the and within this scenario Bronte in close proximity and important Heritage Act 1977 in 1999. It was House was built very late in traditional fishing spots and also listed as a local heritage item the sequence of environmental engraving sites in this part of as part of the Waverley LEP 2012, evolution and people’s interaction eastern Sydney after 1788. Bronte Environmental Heritage. with this changing landscape. The House is an outstanding example recognition of this prior ownership of a Picturesque Gothic style The following Statement of and the continuation of this colonial house retaining rare, early Significance taken from the listing unbroken Aboriginal connection to architectural features and is one of the Land by the NSW Heritage culture and country at places like of only a small group of exemplary Office: Bronte are important to Aboriginal Regency style villas constructed in people today. the Australia colonies. Bronte House Plan of Management Cultural Significance continued... 7 Located in a substantial remnant significant as one of the earliest A historic, extremely rare, of the original inner garden with land purchases and houses to be picturesque garden constructed in a early and original landscape constructed in the Bronte area naturally irregular site as a setting features, Bronte House is sited in and evidence of the former estate for an equally picturesque colonial a picturesque and sympathetic lands remain visible in the broader house by one of the colony’s rarest landscaped setting, which together landscape today. inhabitants - a cultivated lady. with the house is highly valued (James Broadbent for National for its aesthetic significance. The Bronte House is of a style not Trust of Australia, 1981) place is associated with a number commonly found in Australian of people of note including Robert Colonial architecture, with its Bronte House is one of Australia’s Lowe, an influential member of superb siting and substantial most picturesque surviving colonial the Colonial government and his garden it is a significant essay residences and dates back to wife Georgiana, who completed in the picturesque. The property 1845. Built in the ‘Gothic’ taste the house, established the estate has connections with colonial so fashionable in the late 18th & lands and designed and laid out the architect Mortimer Lewis and more early 19th centuries it is a perfect garden. The place is also associated importantly with Robert Lowe, example of the cottage ornee, not with Colonial Architect Mortimer later created Viscount Sherbrooke. a mansion but a romantic retreat Lewis, who is credited with the It is especially notable stylistically from more formal city life. Its initial design of the house and it is as an individual mid-Victorian restored and adapted garden is therefore one of only a small group design reflecting a romantic and now a small scale botanic garden, of houses designed by one of the picturesque interpretation of the a repository for rare and beautiful most accomplished architects in medieval past. It is substantially plants, and one of Australia’s best Australia in the pre 1850s period. intact and retains its outstanding new private gardens. (Schofield, original setting. Bronte House 2002) Located on land that formed part is the oldest known residence of a larger estate that originally in the Waverley Council area. (1836) included the whole of Bronte Sources: Dowd, pp. 154-161. Kerr Park and its immediate surrounds, J, Broadbent J, Gothic Taste in the Bronte House is historically Colony of New South Wales, p. 107. Bronte House Plan of Management 8 OWNERSHIP Waverley Council is the owner of the Land. ZONING AND HERITAGE The Waverley Local Environmental Bronte House and its grounds are (unless exempted), Council must Plan 2012 (‘the LEP’) applies to the both state heritage items under consider the effect of any proposed Land. The Land is zoned Low Density Schedule 5 of the LEP. development on the heritage Residential.