NSWFarming
Vaucluse
A convict knight’s cottage that became Wentworth’s harbour estate.
1803Henry Browne Hayes takes up the Vaucluse grants
WHAT STARTED IT
Vaucluse began as two small land grants on a sheltered bay inside South Head, which the Irish convict Sir Henry Browne Hayes acquired in 1803. He built a cottage there and named the property after the Fontaine de Vaucluse in France. William Charles Wentworth bought it in 1827 and enlarged it to about 500 acres, so the district grew up around one great estate rather than a village.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
Wentworth rebuilt the cottage as a mansion from 1827 to the late 1830s, and planned a village on the estate in 1838 that was never built. He was buried in a vault on the estate in 1873. Vaucluse and Watsons Bay broke away from Woollahra as a separate borough in 1895, and in 1910 the state government bought Vaucluse House as a public memorial.
TURNING POINTS
1803Sir Henry Browne Hayes acquires the Laycock and Cardell grants and builds a cottage.
1827William Charles Wentworth buys Vaucluse and begins turning the cottage into a mansion.
1838Wentworth plans a village subdivision on the estate; it never goes ahead.
1873After a public funeral in Sydney on 6 May, Wentworth is buried in a vault on the Vaucluse estate.
1895The Borough of Vaucluse, including Watsons Bay, is proclaimed on 1 April.
1910The NSW Government acquires Vaucluse House.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A wealthy residential harbourside suburb. Vaucluse House and its grounds are open to the public as a museum.