13.0 Remaking the Landscape
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12 Chapter 13: Remaking the Landscape 13.0 Remaking the landscape 13.1 Research Question The Conservatorium site is located within one of the most significant historic and symbolic landscapes created by European settlers in Australia. The area is located between the sites of the original and replacement Government Houses, on a prominent ridge. While the utility of this ridge was first exploited by a group of windmills, utilitarian purposes soon became secondary to the Macquaries’ grandiose vision for Sydney and the Governor’s Domain in particular. The later creations of the Botanic Gardens, The Garden Palace and the Conservatorium itself, re-used, re-interpreted and created new vistas, paths and planting to reflect the growing urban and economic importance of Sydney within the context of the British empire. Modifications to this site, its topography and vegetation, can therefore be interpreted within the theme of landscape as an expression of the ideology of colonialism. It is considered that this site is uniquely placed to address this research theme which would act as a meaningful interpretive framework for archaeological evidence relating to environmental and landscape features.1 In response to this research question evidence will be presented on how the Government Domain was transformed by the various occupants of First Government House, and the later Government House, during the first years of the colony. The intention behind the gathering and analysis of this evidence is to place the Stables building and the archaeological evidence from all phases of the landscape within a conceptual framework so that we can begin to unravel the meaning behind these major alterations. To understand the Stables building it is essential to understand the Government Houses with which it was associated. This section presents an interpretative approach to the Macquarie-period landscape of the Governor’s Domain that has previously only been used to interpret Sydney’s early buildings. Much of it will focus on the interpretation of the landscape from paintings and the moral philosophy of Scottish enlightenment and neo-classicism that influenced Governor and Mrs Macquarie and how this formed the philosophical basis of their remaking of the Domain landscape within the Picturesque style in the latter part of their residence in Sydney. Incorporated into this remaking of the landscape were aspects of Governor Macquarie’s role of running and managing the colony. This chapter investigates the interplay of their landscape with the creating and legitimising of a new social order and the resistance to this new order. Since writing this chapter in the first half of 2000 the principal author of this report, Mary Casey, used this chapter as the basis for a PhD (2002). Only minor alterations have been made to this original chapter for this report. Much of the interpretation remained the same and was borne out by the additional research and analysis undertaken for the dissertation. Where relevant sections of the thesis have been referred to for further reference. 13.2 Commentaries on the Domain The following commentaries are presented at the beginning of this section to highlight the impact this landscape had of various visitors and residents in the colony. 1 Ireland 1998b:35. ______________________________________________________________________________ Casey & Lowe Associates Conservatorium Site, 1998-2001 13 Chapter 13: Remaking the Landscape Jacques Arago in 1819, accompanying Captain de Freycinet on a world voyage, wrote in letters sent back to France: The coast that borders the spacious harbour of Port Jackson, is a curious spectacle… the European architecture of which strikes our eyes, and excites our admiration. We see only the advanced posts of a city, and are struck with astonishment: we are scarcely arrived, and ask how many ages this colony has existed. …A new fort, regular and of little elevation (Fort Macquarie), but built like the ancient towers, is also capable of protecting or preventing a landing; and seems placed there more particularly to defend the stores and residence of the governor, whose stables appear to me to be built with a view to render them capable of being fortified in case of need. Their architecture is so whimsical, that I cannot find terms to describe it. It was near this last fort, that we dropped anchor the first day; and thence also the landscape appears in all its majesty. …The English garden that embellishes the Government House, particularly fixed my attention; I spent two hours there in one evening; and beneath a Norfolk pine, whose horizontal and graceful branches agreeably sheltered me from the heat of the sun…The shrill cry of the yellow-crested white cockatoo occasionally struck my ear; and while I pursued with my eye, and could stroke with my hand, the silky plumage and rounded bodies of several black swans, that stalked sedately through the walks, my attention was distracted by the irregular noise of the swift kangaroo, which, resting on its tail and long hind feet, leaped over hedges and bushes…Everything was new to me, trees and animals; and I cannot express to you the magic charm I felt… …A single instant had produced this metamorphosis…In the town, I beheld Europe, for European hands had raised it: here nature was not altered, and not a form scarcely a leaf, resembled the productions of our countries;…I was a stranger to every thing…2 Rose de Freycinet in 1819, accompanying her husband Captain de Freycinet on a world voyage, wrote in letters sent back to France: …we went to see the Botanical Garden and the strange building erected to serve as stables to Government House. It looks just like an old fortress, with towers, battlements and so on…no-one could tell us what the Governor had in mind when he had it built. I personally think that it was to add to the beauty of the harbour from which one can see this building on top of a hill close to the town.3 Joseph Lycett in his Views in Australia, published in 1824, wrote: Eastward of the Town, and very near it, is an excellent Promenade, more than three miles and a half in circumference, called the Governor’s Domain. It was laid out and planted under the direction of Mrs. MACQUARIE, the Lady of Governor 2 Rivière 1996:113-115. 3 Rivière 1996:118. ______________________________________________________________________________ Casey & Lowe Associates Conservatorium Site, 1998-2001 14 Chapter 13: Remaking the Landscape Macquarie, whose fine taste has been wonderfully displayed, and very generally admired, in the various parts of the Colony, but most particularly at the Government House and gardens at Parramatta…In the Domain the walks are excellently made, well gravelled, and fenced with posts and rails.4 Peter Cunningham in a letter published in 1827 noted: A few hundred yards from the head of the Cove, toward the left, stands the governor’s house, with its beautiful domain in front, ornamented by large trees of the finest and most varied foliage, scattered singly or in clumps; with a fine belt of shrubbery closing in the back-ground:- the whole occupying a space from beyond the head of the Cove to near Bennilong’s Point. Between the domain and the Cove, an agreeable walk has been formed, chiefly in the solid rock, and fenced off from the domain by a freestone wall, which being level at its top with that portion of the enclosure approaching the Point, the interior attractions may be thus pleasantly viewed; and it is in consequence of this circumstance, together with the prospect that it commands of the shipping in the harbour, and its communicating with the other fine walks around, that this promenade has become the favourite of our Sunday pedestrians and fashionables, - -along which they pour, to enjoy the cool evening sea-breeze among the delightful scenery bordering the shores of the harbour beyond. But the domain, beautiful as it still undoubtedly is, has lost much of its attraction since being deprived of the kangaroos and emus seen, in Governor Macquarie’s time, hopping and frisking playfully about, which never failed to strike powerfully the eye of a stranger on his first sight of them from ship-board, both on account of their novelty to him, and their being emblematical of the country upon whose shore he was about to debark.5 Louisa Meredith in 1839 observed: As we neared Sydney, several rocky islets appeared, some rising like ruined forts and castles and richly adorned with verdant shrubs sown to the edge of the bright, clear deep blue water…close to the town is the beautiful Domain, a most picturesque rocky promontory, thickly wooded and laid out in fine smooth drives and walks, commanding most exquisite views of Sydney and its environs…6 13.3 Background: Theory, Philosophy and Art History 13.3.1 Theoretical Background7 This interpretation of the Domain landscape is informed by the theoretical perspectives on the meaning of landscapes as proposed by archaeologists such as Rubertone, Leone, Yamin, Bescherer, Yentsch, and Hall, as well as scholars from other disciplines which study cultural landscapes, such as, Cosgrove, Williamson and Bellamy and Samson. This chapter does not see the Domain landscape of 1788 to 1840s as the product of chance or random events nor was it a static place. Rather, to use Patricia Rubertone’s words, the: 4 Lycett 1824. 5 Cunningham 1827, 1:40-42. 6 DPWS HS 1997:84, quoting from Meredith. 7 This section has been considerably extended in Casey 2002. ______________________________________________________________________________ Casey & Lowe Associates Conservatorium Site, 1998-2001 15 Chapter 13: Remaking the Landscape landscape does not just mirror the organization of things or mediate taste – it ‘is an active force in creating the social order, in legitimising it and bringing about changes in it’.