Cossington is a heritage-listed residence located at 43 Ku-Ring-Gai Avenue, in the Sydney suburb of Turramurra, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by Nixon and Allen and built in 1899. It is also known as Sylvan Fells and Sylvan Falls. The property is privately owned. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 18 August 2006.
History Turramurra Originally a timber-getting area settlement begun in 1822 until after 1850 when the orchardists came to occupy extensive landholdings producing a variety of citrus and other fruits including persimmons, custard apples and Chinese pears. The Turramurra railway station was opened on 1 January 1890. The suburb was then known as Eastern Road and it was nearly a year later on 14 December 1890 that Turramurra was named after the Aboriginal word meaning "high hill".
The construction of the railway brought immediate progress. In 1881 the population was only 142, by 1891 it was 788 and in 1901 1,306.
There was no electricity until 1927, water was piped from Wahroonga Reservoir and the outside loos were regularly emptied by the nightwatchman. The gaslights were lit each evening by the gaslighter. Those with very large properties kept cows for instant milk supply. Many dairies were established and the milkman delivered twice a day. By 1920 fruit fly put an end to all commercial growing of fruit on the North Shore and the land were converted into Chinese gardens.
Ku-rin-gai Avenue The most expensive subdivision, of lots of or more available, is the portion around Ku-ring-gai Avenue and Boomerang Street and a number of houses listed in the Sands Directory of 1903 are found here. Shops appeared from 1912 and Chinese gardens, that disappeared after World War II.
Ku-ring-gai Avenue was owned by a few prominent people. Architect Thomas Cosh designed and built a number of houses here, possibly as a speculative builder and developer, and lived in a few of them before selling on, including: 2 – Ellerslie 1899 – John Shedden Adam 8 – Mildura 1899 – Slatyer and Cosh 12 – Ballydown 1897 – Charles Slatyer – Martin McIlrath (second owner of Ingleholme) 17 – Glensloy, Wychwood 1901 – Robertson and Marks – G. E. McFarlane (tobacco merchant); originally on a site 25 – Yacaba 1897 – Walter Vindin (solicitor) 31 – Creighton, Cainga, Tanvally 1899 – Thomas Cosh 34 – Newstead, Yprina 1903 – Lichtner, chemist and importer 37 – Ilanscourt 1897 – Nixon and Allen – W. J. Baker, cutler and instrument maker 43 – Sylvan Fels, Cossington 1899 – Nixon and Allen — Grace Cossington Smith gave drawing and painting lessons. 44 – Waiwera 1900 – additions by Spain and Cosh (Sir Joseph Palmer Abbott) Woodstock 1905 – Spain and Cosh – W. C. Penfold 51 – Highfield 1917 54 – Erahor, Cairns 1900 — Spain and Cosh (Thomas Cosh) – Dr Cosh and later J. P. Dowling 55 – Hampton 1900 – Alex Joske 56 – Strathendrick 1899 – Spain and Cosh – Mr Ward rented from Cosh 60 – The Terricks 1908 – Spain and Cosh, (Thomas Cosh) 62 – Egelabra 1908 – Spain and Cosh (Thomas Cosh) 77 – Talagon 1897 – Arthur Stanton CookEdwards, 2009
Grace Cossington Smith
Grace Smith is born in 1892 at Neutral Bay to English migrant Ernest Augustus Smith and Grace (née Fisher), the second of five children. The extended name "Grace Cossington Smith" appears on her baptism entry at St Augustine in Neutral Bay. Her mother encouraged her to adopt it as part of her identity as an artist and she began actively using it in her twenties as her preferred way of being recognised, personally and professionally.Hart, 2005, 1 In 1895 the Allowah Estate in Turramurra is subdivided (Cossington will be built on Lot 12). In 1899 the house was designed by Nixon and Allen for W. J. Baker. Named Sylvan Fells, it has an unusual timber lined meeting room which is used for Quaker meetings. According to Quaker researcher Jenny Madeline, William John Baker was a trustee for the Quaker Burial Ground established at Rookwood Necropolis in 1902 following the resumption of the Devonshire Street Cemetery for Central railway station. He had had another house built to the design of Nixon and Allen at 37 Kuringai Ave Turramurra in 1897.Reith and Madeline, 2006 Cossington Smith later would say that the house at Turramurra had been designed for "'Mr Baker the Quaker' as a dwelling that could also function as a Quaker lodge, a kind of church".Thomas, 2005, 157
1910 Cossington Smith attends art classes with Dattilo Rubbo in Sydney. 1912–14 Cossington Smith travels to Europe, attending art classes in England and Germany. 1913 Ernest and Grace Smith rent the house at 43 Ku-Ring-Gai Ave Turramurra from Mr Baker. 1914 Cossington Smith rejoins her family in the new home at Turramurra. She would live at Cossington for the next 65 years. 1914 Cossington Smith's father builds a small studio in the garden for her to paint in, as she recalled: "father was a dear, so was my mother; both of them were keen about my painting, and my father built me that dear little studio down at the bottom of the garden, a perfect studio".Hart, 2005, 11 1915 Cossington Smith exhibits "The Sock Knitter", an important early work of modern Australian art, based on her sister Madge seated at Cossington. It is later described by Daniel Thomas as "perhaps the first fully Post Impressionist work painted in Australia".Johnson, 1995, p.451 1920 Ernest Smith buys the Turramurra house, renaming it Cossington. Ernest and Grace had also given this name to their first house in Wycombe Road Neutral Bay - "in memory of the Leicestershire parish where Grace Fisher's father had been Rector".Modjeska, 1999, 214 1928 At the age of 36 Cossington Smith holds her first solo art exhibition at the Grosvenor Galleries. From 1932 she would hold a further 18 solo exhibitions at the Macquarie Galleries in Sydney. She would also participate in many group exhibitions and be awarded the Order of the British Empire and appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia. 1931 Cossington Smith's mother passes away. 1938 Cossington Smith's father passes away on 29 September. 1939 Grace and two sisters move out to lodgings in a house nearby in Womerah Street for a few months while "a large well-lit studio was added to the house, to which other minor alterations were also made by the architect Bertram Chisholm".Thomas, 1973 and Thomas, personal communication, 2006 The studio in the garden gradually deteriorates (considered to be in dangerous state of ill-repair by the late 1970s, it is demolished by Cossington Smith's niece after 1979). The original door from the garden studio is moved to the house-based studio. 1962 Cossington Smith's last surviving sibling Charlotte passes away, leaving Cossington to live alone at Cossington for the next 17 years. 1973 A major retrospective exhibition of Cossington Smith's work is curated by Daniel Thomas at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and tours nationally in all mainland states. 1979 Cossington Smith moves from Cossington to live in a nursing home in Roseville. 1984 Cossington Smith passes away on 20 December. She leaves Cossington to her brother's three children, one of which, Ann Mills, has already been living there since 1979. Ann's brother and sister sell their shares of the house to Ann, happy to keep the house within the family. 2005 A major retrospective of Cossington Smith's work is curated by Deborah Hart at the National Gallery of Australia and tours nationally.
Comments by art historians
Description
A Federation period home with fine timber detailing and an unusual timber lined meeting room.National Trust listing card, 1985 A large single storey Federation style house constructed of red open kiln bricks with blue brick dressings along the line of the window ledges and above the windows. Mitre slate roof with lead ridging. There are four decorative chimneys of red and blue bricks. Strong veranda details include turned posts, delicately incised timber brackets and lattice valance.
The interior features an impressive kauri board lined central meeting room with a fine cedar screen with decorative leadlight panels and a rough hewn stone fire surround.
The house stands in a mature garden of dense-leafed evergreens, pines, azaleas and camellias, with a wide gravel brick-edged drive in good condition. The front fence repeats the style and structure of many fences in Ku-Ring-Gai Avenue, with overlapping palings and squared timber coping. There are heavy wrought iron gates in rectangular and diamond pattern.
The door from the new kitchen (previous spare bedroom) to the back veranda is original and unusual in that the joinery makes the shape of a cross (this may be a remnant of significance to the original Quaker occupants). The door into Cossington Smith's former studio (in the south eastern corner of the house) is significant as it had been the door to her studio in the garden and was moved to its new position when she moved the studio into the house.
Moveable heritage The major dark wood furniture in the dining room is largely the same as when Cossington Smith lived there - a large bookcase with many art books that had been owned by Cossington Smith, the dining table and chairs and the large sideboard, as well as the mantle clock over the original fireplace. This room also contains its original french doors leading from the living room to the back veranda, making it perhaps the most intact room in the house. In the living room, the original fireplace is graced with its original mantle clock and two period drawings of GCS's forebears titled "Great grandfather Smith" and "Great grandmother".
Modifications since 1979 are minor and largely reversible if desired.
Modifications and dates 1899 – House built, used for Quaker meetings. 1913 – House first rented by Ernest and Grace Smith, who renamed it "Cossington" when Ernest bought it in 1920. Between 1913 and his death in 1938 Ernest added a verandah and entrance vestibule to the front facade of the house, moving the front door from the south side of the house to the west side; added a tennis court to the back yard; and built a studio for Cossington Smith to work in, in the north eastern corner of the back garden. 1938 to 1979 – Cossington Smith moves her studio into the house, extending the south side of the house in 1939 to incorporate it as a new room, and at the same time extending the bedroom on the other side of the hall ("Madge's bedroom"). These minor modifications are designed by the architect Bertram Chisholm.Thomas, Daniel. 2006 Cossington Smith and her sisters sell the second block of land behind the house which was depicted in "Bonfire in the Bush" 1937. A large liquidambar tree is now situated in about the same place as where the three sisters stood in the painting.