Heathcote Hall is a heritage-listed private residence at 1-21 Dillwynnia Grove, Heathcote, Sutherland Shire, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by Thomas Rowe and built by Abel Harber. It is also known as Heathcote Hall and Grounds; and Bottle Forest. The property is privately owned. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
History
Heathcote
The development of the setting was primarily in response to construction of the Illawarra Railway line and extension of this line to this area in the 1880s. Early in 1886 the line was opened up as far as Waterfall. Up until then Heathcote was known as Bottle Forest. Bottle Forest proper and embraced an area of about . This little pocket of fertile country extends north from Heathcote railway station for about , with the railway as its western boundary, runs back to the east in Royal National Park for about , over the crest of the Great Dividing Range, between the watershed of the Port Hacking and Woronora Rivers.
The new settlement of Como came alive with the construction of the railway bridge over the Georges River. Soon railway camps were set up at Sutherland township, Heathcote and Waterfall. Construction of the long tunnels near Helensburgh employed skilled contractors and consumed millions of bricks. Many were made at the brickworks established by Abel Harber at Heathcote. At the 1891 census most people lived at Sylvania and settlements clustered along the line at Sutherland, Como, Heathcote and Waterfall.
The establishment of Australia's first National Park (Royal National Park) in 1879 also began to attract people to Sydney's south. Heathcote was one of a number of suburbs within the Shire of Sutherland that were to be established adjacent to land reserved as national park.
Heathcote retained its bushland setting for a number of years. It remained relatively undeveloped as a suburb until the 1920s, despite having a station in the vicinity. No doubt the reason for this neglect on the part of home-seekers lies in the fact that the Bottle Forest area, which adjoins the railway and embraces the most fertile soil and greatest elevation, had been locked up in two large family estates and never thrown open to the public for purchase.
Heathcote Hall estate
In the 1920s the Heathcote Hall estate was surveyed and the former lot subdivided into numerous blocks. Heathcote Hall was retained on a block. The lot boundary has remained unchanged since.
Heathcote Hall
Some of freehold land was purchased about 1879 by Mr Abel Harber, a wealthy brickmaker of that period. He built Heathcote Hall in 1887 and located it on the highest point of his land.
The hall was designed by leading Sydney architectural firm, Rowe and Green, for a sum of .
Unfortunately, following financial losses in connection with the building of the Imperial Arcade, Sydney, Harber abandoned Heathcote Hall for the benefit of his creditors. However the mortgagees who took possession in 1892 did not find the estate a disposable proposition, for New South Wales was then in the throes of the temporary financial collapse of the 1890s.
The Financial Institution, which had become the possessor, made arrangements with George Adams of Tattersalls to dispose of it by lottery. Issued from Brisbane, Heathcote Hall was made first prize at a value of seven thousand pounds. The winning ticket was held by Mr Samuel Gillette, a Sydney builder. He retained ownership for five years and then sold the whole estate for much less than its valuation. A mansion and park at Heathcote before the advent of the motorcar and with only one train a day service was not a good proposition for a city businessman struggling through the competitive times of the 1890s.
Gillette sold the estate to Mrs Jessie Fotheringham Brown in 1901.
Early in 1901, Mr R R Brown purchased Heathcote Hall with the intention of retiring there for the few short months of life that leading Sydney medical men had advised was left to him. However Mr Brown confounded his medical advisers and lived there until about 1923.
During the 1920s it was used for public tea rooms and limited accommodation, as well as a 36-hole putting green available for public use.
In 1927 the property was subdivided into 168 suburban lots with Heathcote Hall remaining on a block. Blocks sold very slowly, and in 1945, the Heathcote Hall Estate Ltd. sold the reduced Hall block to Mrs Minima Farrelly, wife of Mr Joseph Farrelly. The property was in the ownership of the Farrelly family for 70 years and land on the northern part of the property was used for stabling and training of horses since the 1970s.