Caroline Simpson Collection

Thorne family members at Darcey Hey, Castle Hill, around 1878 / photographer unknown

[c1878]

1 albumen photoprint ; sepia toned ; 6 x 9.5 cm.

Print pasted down in a Thorne family album.

gardens
family groups
dogs
tree ferns
Norfolk Island pines
Darcey Hey (Castle Hill, N.S.W.)
Thorne family.

The country house Darcey Hey, in the north-western Sydney suburb of Castle Hill, was built in in the 1840s as an inn and was named Darcey Hey when it became a private house in the 1850s. In 1877 Darcey Hey and its associated estate of around 300 acres became the property of Sydney merchant George Thorne (1810-1891). The house was described at that time as being brick-built, of two-storeys with wide verandahs all round, containing 8 large rooms and a kitchen, laundry and dairy, surrounded by a flower garden, lawn and shrubbery.[ref: SMH 2 June 1877 p.13]
The family group depicted in this photograph include Mrs Elizabeth Ann Thorne (1821-1910) seated in the centre, with her son-in-law Francis Thomas Watkins (1840-1913) standing behind her, surrounded by grandchildren, daughters and the family mastiff "Venus".

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

37899