Gladesville Sandstones That Survived the Modernising Juggernaut

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Dorset and Durham together

With so much of Sydney’s old houses torn down and replaced with pre-fabs and medium-rise/high-rise mega unit-blocks, the suburb of Gladesville has somehow managed–against the odds and against the steamrolling advance of “Whelan the Wrecker”—to hold on to a very limited collection of 19th century sandstone cottages. Several of them are hiding in plain sight in always bustling Victoria Road…here in close proximity to one another we find these surviving remnants, # 143, # 147, # 163, currently either housing a commercial concern or unoccupied.

Gladesville’s dwellings of ancient sedimentary rock are not restricted to this strip of Victoria Road…further along the main drag in the direction of Gladesville Bridge is # 4 Victoria Road, Henley, aka Henley House, once part of the abundant sandstone expanse of Gladesville Hospital, now the home of a community radio station.

Henley House

Lastly, there’s the 1850s-vintage Rockend Cottage at 40 Punt Road on the Bedlam Point edge of the hospital. Owing it’s survival after falling into disrepair in the 1970s to local community action, it has deep historic associations with “Waltzing Matilda” poet Banjo Patterson.