Willow Cottage Balmain - Restoration Australia Season 4, Episode 7

Host Anthony Burke meets Martin Nix who is restoring an 1850s workers cottage in Balmain on Sydney Harbour, all while dealing with a recent family tragedy.

Am I getting jaded that a program purported to be about restoring old houses needs a personal tragedy to sell it?  The usual trope for these shows is about the stress on relationships and budgets. But when the people and houses are clearly in the top percentile for wealth and price, the producers need something else to give the show an edge. One wonders what the casting interviews must be like.

The final installment in Renovation Australia is the most expensive property yet. Sold on 2014 for an "outrageous" $2.68 million, $830,000 above the reserve, described as a dump at the time. I guess everyone wants to live on the harbour and only those with the millions to spend can do it.

A couple of years later, still dilapidated, it went for $2.9 million with "awe-inspiring views across the water to the Harbour Bridge and Barangaroo" and approved architectural plans designed to completely renovate the home, include a pool and provide for a stunning transformation into a sought-after family residence. And then again for $2,95 million. Sydney houses are more like Bitcoin than places to live. 

Martin Nix has another $1.3 million to put into the reno, and has engaged Chris from CKJ Builders, who has the experience, both in careful restoration and high end new builds. We are told Mr Nix understands and appreciates buildings because he heads a construction survey company. Then Burke pipes in with his usual warnings of 'stringent heritage controls', 'onerous heritage restrictions' and an 'extreme' historic overlay, as if the council or NSW Heritage Office are some kind of Spanish Inquisition intent on torturing prospective renovators. Burke also claims that 'heritage restrictions mean knocking down original walls isn't an option', and yet the first we see of the interior is a building with most of the internal structure and lining already removed. 

There is plenty of evidence that the heritage values of the site warrant protecting the fabric, including a well-preserved timber shingle roof and very rare brick nogging in the walls. In a strange detail of doubtful heritage administration there is apparently no heritage overlay on the windows. 

The language Burke uses only perpetuates an attitude that heritage is a bad thing that gets in the way of people's right to enjoy their own property. And yet without the regulations there would be no heritage buildings to restore and no Restoration Australia.

Planning approvals can be sourced on-line these days, and browsing them shows that they might have included a range of conditions including deletion of the proposed basement. The Council report states:

Council’s Heritage Advisor has advised that every care should be taken to retain the remaining fabric of this outbuilding and maintain its structural integrity, with any reconstruction maintaining legibility between the old and new sections of the wall to allow interpretation of old fabric and guide future changes to the outbuilding. Visibility to the timber levelling plates embedded in the brick wall must be retained. Different finishes must be used in the addition, to that used in the outbuilding to enable the interpretation of this early construction technique. The modification will be conditioned accordingly to ensure that the elevation drawings are consistent with the floor plans. 

Further to the above, in the event of any approved excavation, a condition of consent for unexpected findings will be necessary.

 There certainly looks like archaeological potential on the site. another condition of their permit was:

Condition 57A of the DA states. "If unexpected archaeological deposits or Aboriginal objects are found during the works covered by this approval, work must cease in the affected area(s) and the Department of Premier, Cabinet and Heritage must be notified through the Environment Line. Additional assessment and approval pursuant to the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 may be required prior to works continuing in the affected area(s) based on the nature of the discovery. Council’s Aboriginal Liaison officer is also to be notified.

There was mention of archaeology in the show, despite some treasure hunting banter about old bottles, newspapers and marbles. An underfloor deposit of rubble suggest some potential and a nice section of humic soil over the bedrock is revealed for the pool.

Historian Mark Dunn has a brief cameo to set the scene and remind us of the industrial origins and working class credibility that once came from doing a Balmain renovation. Shame he didn't mention the most famous Balmain boy.

The Leichart historical journal offers the following:

WILLIAM JAMES: The land adjoining the park was owned by William James who combined property development with the trade of woolsorter. He bought the land in 1853 from Griffiths and Fanning and built two houses (Willow Cottages, 1-3 James Lane) facing the water. After his death in 1882 his widow, Jane, who lived in one of the cottages sold the land on Darling Street to a builder, John Dobbie, in 1884. He built a row of six houses which he called Plym Terrace. Marching down to Thornton Park, each house in the terrace has two storeys above the street with a basement opening on to a sunken area. Built of brick and surfaced with stucco, Plym Terrace inevitably suffered later unsympathetic improvements. In Darling Street on the high side of the lane that took his name, William James built Devonshire Cottage in about 1860. Joshua George, one of Balmain's watermen lived there from 1860 until his death in 1884. His widow, Isabella, lived on there until she died in 1912. The cottage is now the nucleus of 33 Darling Street. Next door was another small cottage (now demolished), also built by James at about the same time. The cottage became part of the estate of Captain Lewis Truscott of Balmain East.

 There are a few bits of the old house that survive the renovation and can still be seen. The chimney breast sits in the middle of the house, with the walls around it removed.

A patch of the shingles is revealed in the new attic bathroom...

but another slab is cut out for a dormer.

Some brick nogging behind a glass splashback,

a bit of sandstone is left in the basement,

and a feature wall of sandstone is in the bedroom.

A redeeming aspect of the episode is the story told by the Neil about the previous owner Lex Watson, a powerful advocate for gay rights (when Balmain was still a place open to the masses); his parties in the garden and the sad decline of the house and garden when he became sick and died in 2016. Whether intended or not, the 'renovation as therapy' theme seems to permeate the program, as if a person's health and wellbeing was intrinsically tied to the quality of the finishes and fittings in their home.

The garden is gone of course, first the big Jacaranda...

and then everything else except a lonely palm.

I guess there is no room for natural beauty in the balance between heritage and modern lifestyle.

This appears to be the last episode in Season 4. I think I am glad. Working in the heritage field, you learn about and aspire to best practice and try to adhere to the Burra charter. but in the real world, most heritage conservation work is a compromise that is strongly weighted to the fads and fashions of interior decoration and lifestyle aspirations. Few are willing to live in the small, simple accommodation of the nineteenth century despite the essential needs of shelter, warmth and beauty being supplied by the minimum of intervention.

The Lawns Kyneton Restoration Australia Season 4 Episode 6

Host Anthony Burke meets a couple who have purchased one of the most significant buildings in the historic town of Kyneton, Victoria.

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With much of the restoration work happening without the cameras present, Burke's narrative is reduced to a holiday travelogue rabbiting on about Kyneton as the picturesque day trip destination of cafes and bric-a-brac. We get more than the usual driving montages with introductions, recaps, summaries and "how will they ballance accurate heritage with modern lifestyle" platitudes. We get a glimpse of the poor Kyneton hospital during his drive around Shannon' s home town. It is derelict and fenced off. Will that ever get revived? There is even a token first nations interlude to mention Mt William Greenstone in the same segment as Kyneton bluestone.

The scripting for all four seasons of Restoration Australia has been uniformly pedestrian. Either the three hosts so far have been evenly matched in their inadequacy for the job of making up their own words, or there has been a consistent bad writer  banging away at the word processor. Whoever is responsible, we miss out on the depth of history that can be revealed in the fabric of old buildings or an appreciation of how that historic fabric influences and enriches our lives.

The Lawns is described as "one of the oldest and most notable surviving Victorian Manor houses of its era, in Australia" and "one of the last freestanding ornate timber buildings from the late 1800s in the area." This seems firstly an unnecessary superlative and unlikely to be true, and the second part a series of qualifications that suggest Burke doesn't really know why it is important. "Manor house" is not a particularly Australian house type, generally confined to the snobbier kind of bed and breakfast, new housing estate, or McMansion. There are far more notable historic buildings named "Manor House" in Lilydale, Hamilton and Bacchus Marsh.

The Lawns is a reasonably attractive Victorian gabled timber house possibly a bit neo gothic but definitely not Georgian. It has a couple of refinement in plaster decoration and joinery but the unusual aspect is its odd floor plan and a wide off-centre facade with mismatched gables at each end. Behind is a fairly standard Victorian double hipped four square centre hall layout. It looks like an addition to make a status statement.

We learn about the original owner's business and horse racing activities from local historial Larina Stauch, and joint author of a wonderful new Kyneton pictorial history. No.69 Wedge Street was built around 1871 for local brewer, Robert Cock, son of South Australian pioneer Robert Cock (also a brewer at Mt. Gambier) who was notable among other things for paying rent to traditional Aboriginal owners.

Robert senior died in 1871, so it might be that the son used the inheritance to build himself a new house in Kyneton. Cock had followed on in his father's trade commencing a brewery in Kyneton with partner Johnson by at least 1865. His younger brother James inherited and ran the Mt Gambier brewery. 

A later owner, draper Hugh Rawson MLA may have been responsible for the extensions, including the odd asymmetry and 1920s looking sideways bay window, so he could entertain his constituents and political donors.

By the time Shannon and Liza Boyers forked out the $1.6 million for Cock's old house, it could be described as rundown with an overgrown garden, but relatively recent and still online real estate agents photos show a reasonably cared for house. What a difference a couple of years of neglect can make.

The series continues the model now well established of showing well off couples paying capable contractors to do the job right. At least the tradies are getting their proper recognition even though they usually only have first names. Shannon has "scoured the country to find the best, highly skilled tradespeople."

He didn't have to go to such lengths for the most part, as neither paint not internal alteration controls exist in the HO, although tree controls do, so the specialist gardeners were a good idea. Permits were obtained in several stages although Burke is silent on the "trouble with council" trope this time.

We see a repeat of the previous episode's abhorrence of colour, as the Victorianish but probably 1980s wallpapers are stripped and everything goes white. There are plans for some wall knockings out and an "orangerie". But mostly its is restumping, replastering and painting.

Scott McMillan is a Scottish plasterer with extensive  experience in historical restoration using traditional methods on behalf of Historic Scotland. He was brought out to Australia to fill a skills gap in Brisbane and was flown dow specially to do the Kyneton job. Here he sources, mixes and applies horsehair-reinforced solid plaster over renovated battens after stripping off the detached and "drummy" old stuff.

With an Australian offsider Paulie he pulls down the Gyprock plaster board and the water damaged ceiling in the hall. We don't get to see how they get the new plaster to stick above their heads - a task that would seem impossible to anyone taking their reno queues from The Block. 

Stonemason Huntly Barton is one of the few skilled dry stone wallers in Victoria. Conveniently situated at the longstanding Kyneton stonemason WT Jones just up the road. He has responsibly for the OCD sawn stone threshold and edging in the garden since there is neither mortgaged stone in the house or dry stone walls in the garden. A waste of his talents really.

Roland Hiller is woodgrain faux bois painter. He gets to redo the front door, while traditional locksmith Aaron reconditions the carpenter lock, even polishing up the key- possibly a newly made one. It feels like the Boyes are playing up to the cameras with this one. "Performative restoration."

Luke (Sinderberry) from VR Builders uses all the right terms -  "like for like", "period correct", "authentic materials". He knows his stuff.

The women gardeners don't get names but they do have the right terms determining "period specific species" to make the grounds as heritagy as the building. They may be from Ranges Landcare Group, who we see sieving and spreading topsoil  

The wealthy versus battler switch is best represented by the hunt for the right chandelier. Unashamedly referred to as "...a symbol of luxury and social standing emblematic of the upper echelons of society". Shannon was after all a tour guide at Glin Gastle and steward and butler at Government House. The orangerie, which must be the ultimate in conspicuous consumption, is abandoned due to time, money and covid constraints, and instead the 1950s altered outbuildings are restored. This reveals a possible earlier building, perhaps a built in verandah. Have we missed the archaeological assessment?

Burke struggles to make the drama happen. All the stress supposedly created by their commitment to authenticity and detail is dissipated by the calm efficiency of the tradespeople doing all of the actual work.

It is a lovely enchanting house and garden that shows what money can do. $1.6 mill and $600G for restoration without the orangerie. And not a mention of the heritage officer.