Caroline Simpson Collection

Claremont, Rose Bay, home of the Thorne family, around 1878 / photographer unknown

[c1878]

1 albumen print ; sepia toned ; 26 x 35.5 cm.

Loose photograph in a Thorne family album.

verandahs
iron lace
towers
porches
garden ornament
stone houses
villas
Claremont (Rose Bay, N.S.W.)

The house Claremont in the Sydney suburb of Rose Bay was built in 1851-1852 for Bristol born Sydney businessman George Thorne (1810-1891) who had migrated to Australia in 1840. He married Elizabeth Ann Bisdee in Hobart in 1842. George Thorne retained ownership of Claremont until early 1879 but the family did not reside in the house continuously. The house was let at various times in the late 1850s, early 1860 and again in late 1869. [ref: SMH 6.2.1858; 11.4.1861; 27.11.1869; 25.1.1879]
When the house was put up or auction in February 1879 it was described in the following terms: "a two-story stone built villa residence of the Italian style of architecture, with wide stone verandahs on the basement front and on three sides of the principal floor .. It contains the following extensive accommodation: fine entrance porch and vestibule, 13 good sized rooms besides kitchen, laundry, storeroom, pantry, cellar, dairy, and all other necessary conveniences." There was also a detached gardener's cottage of stone, stables, coachhouses, grooms rooms, poultry houses etc. The interior of the house was described as "highly finished", with the principle rooms having marble mantelpieces, rich cornices and fittings of polished cedar. [ref: Sydney Morning Herald 1 Feb 1879 p.14]

Estate of Rosalie Ann Watkins, nee Thorne, (1850-1927) of Penrose, Marsden Street Parramatta; Kenneth Stewart, Sydney antiquarian bookseller

Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection ;

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Picture

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