Wynstay Estate is a heritage-listed farm located at 68-78 The Avenue, Mount Wilson in the City of Blue Mountains local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by Richard Wynne and built from 1875 to 1893 by Joseland and Gilling; Turkish Bath house by Earnest A. Bonney. It is also known as The Turkish Bath. The property is privately owned. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 12 April 2002.
History In 1833 William Romaine Govett completed his survey of 'the mountain ranges immediately to the north of Bell's Ridge' in which he described Mount Wilson as "high mass of range of the richest soil and covered with impenetrable scrub".
In 1868 Surveyor E. S. Wyndham completed his survey including 62 portions situated at Mount Wilson, Parish of Irvine, County of Cook. Richard Wynne is listed in 1870 as living at Wynstay on Liverpool Road, Burwood between Drivers Road and Alt Street.
After an attempted sale by auction in April 1870, Wynne purchased six allotments of Wyndham's subdivisions between 1875 and 1876. In 1875 Richard Wynne completed his first term as Mayor of Burwood and that year built a cottage on his property at Mt. Wilson. Between 1876 and 1878 Wynne appears to have built a second, larger house called Yarrawa, which burned down in 1906. A photograph of this second house held by the Mount Wilson & Mt. Irvine Historical Society was taken by Bischoff, a photographer with Eccleston du Faur's expedition in the Grose Valley, dating it to well before 1893.
During this period Wynne is said to have employed a stonemason, John Rowland. The stables, gate lodge, the timber house now known as Old Wynstay and much of the crenulated stone walls were completed.
Between 1875 and 1879 the road towards Mount Irvine was resurveyed to skirt the top of the hill on which Wynstay now stands, presumably because the road surveyed by Wyndham was too steep. On 3 September 1879 the redundant section of old road, was purchased by Richard Wynne as the gates, Old Wynstay and much of the crenulated walls are located on this land.
In 1880 the name Yarrawa appears to have still been in use. Henry John Wynne (Richard Wynne's son) acquired portion 64 to the north of the old road by Crown grant in 1882. By this time, the portion was bisected by the Mount Irvine Road. The name Yarrawa was in use right up until 1921, as noted in the correspondence with Colonel Richard Owen Wynne.
Wynne's inventory of 1893 recorded the existence of the Turkish Bath, a house known as Wynstay and other buildings on the estate - unfortunately this 1893 inventory referred to has never been sighted since. In 1893 drawings for a "Turkish Bath in the Italianate style" were included in "The Settlement of Mt Wilson" by Fraser, James & Mack. There is some doubt about the drawings of the Turkish Bath in that thesis. They were not drawn by architect Earnest H. Bonney but more likely by the authors. Recent research indicates the Turkish Bath House was built (well) before 1890 - probably in the mid-1880s for use by Richard's wife Mary Anne, who had fallen into ill health and whose doctors had prescribed a course of Turkish baths. Mrs Wynne died in July 1889 of abdominal cancer.Design 5 Architects, 1999
On 15 June 1895 Richard Wynne died at Greta, Macdonald Street, Potts Point. Cause of death was listed as being senile decay, purpura and cerebral congestion. His wife, Mary Ann Neich was recorded as being deceased. Also recorded is that of their five male children, only one, Henry John Wynne, then aged 36 years age, was living.
On 16 April 1896 the Wynstay Estate was held in trust by the Perpetual Trustee Company, Sydney. On 22 January 1898 Henry John Wynne died at Mount Wilson aged 38 of chronic Bright's disease. The death certificate describes Henry as being of independent means, and the duration of his last illness one year. It also listed his children Richard O. and Dulcie M. as living and aged 5 and 3 respectively.
On 18 December 1913 Richard Owen Wynne Esq. of Watford, England, Richard Wynne's grandson, became the new owner of the Wynstay Estate. R. O. Wynne returned to Australia, with his English bride and in the same year work commenced on the construction of the present Wynstay, to the design of Joseland and Gilling Architects. The Turkish Bath was converted into living quarters for the three stonemasons constructing the new home. From to 1945 the Turkish Bath continued to be used as a residence and little or no further alteration to the building occurred during this time.
James Inglis, a new arrival in NSW in 1877 from India with a commission to write on the Australian colonies as a field for "Anglo-Indian capital", produced "Our Australian Cousins" in which he wrote in glowing terms of Mount Wilson. In 1880 he visited Edward Merewether (at Dennarque), describing the scene as he reached this block which today is at the top of the Lithgow Zig Zag:
Here is direct evidence of the pattern already apparent that Mount Wilson and the Blue Mountains had become the popular concept of a hill station, providing an escape from Sydney, Newcastle, Mulgoa and Mudgee to a cool, healthy, beautiful, mountainous environment during the hotter summer months for the families who built homes in Mount Wilson.
When Dennarque was owned by the Mann children (1924+) a guesthouse was established. After World War 1 the small Mt. Wilson community underwent considerable social and economic change. Some property owners chose to live on the mountain permanently to make a living from its rich basalt soil. These permanent settlers were to include Richard Owen Wynne (grandson of Richard Wynne) of Wynstay, Edward Jesse Gregson (son of Jesse Gregson) of Yengo, George Ernest Valder (son of George Valder who had bought Nooroo in 1917–18), Ivie Sloan (of Bebeah, bought in 1902) and Frederick Farrell Mann of Yengo (called Stone Lodge after 1923 when he purchased it from Edward Gregson).
Mt Wilson had acquired an attractive reputation for its rare beauty and its coolness in the summer and special environment bought visitors in small numbers. Tearooms and guesthouse accommodation emerged. An early map after World War 1 shows G Knight Brown running Campanella as a guesthouse (Wynne papers, Mitchell Library). Nooroo also had guests.
In 1922 a post office building containing a residence and officer, was constructed in The Avenue opposite Bebeah through funds provided by a number of local property owners forming a trust. In this building was a tearoom and, for a short period, a small general store. An extract from "The Blue Mountains Echo" in 1921:
"A Tourist's Paradise" There is only one Mount Wilson in NSW - No other is exactly like it - one of the principle glories of the Mount is its tree ferns. They are everywhere on the mountain top, in the gullies out in the sunlight."
The article describes the wonders of "Wynnestay its grounds are glorious, the beauty and diversity of foliage and form baffle description."
The guesthouses at Mt. Wilson became an attractive feature of holidaying in this rather isolated mountain retreat. They functioned on a modest scale bringing a rather select group of visitors. Meanwhile, a small number of property owners turned to orcharding to derive an income from this same mountain. Others, like the Whites of Withycombe, continued to use it as a summer retreat (Reynolds, 2009, 1,4-8, abridged)
Following the death of Colonel R.O. Wynne on 24 September 1968, his widow, Florence Mariamne Wynne, Sons Mervyn Owen and Ronald Michael Wynne and daughter Jane Mariamne Smart became the new owners of the estate.
On 3 May 1972 following the death of Colonel Wynne's widow, the three children inherited the estate. Gowan Ross Pty Ltd., established by the Smart family, purchased the estate.Design 5 Architects 1999
s polythene-clad tunnel houses in a nursery area east of the house were built by Bill Smart for use by the family nurseries. These were built on the site of the old tennis court. Bill Smart was interested in contemporary horticulture.
Historic notes: The property of Wynstay somprses the largest land holding in the town Mount Wilson. Richard Wynne, a successful Sydney businessman, built MOunt Wilson's first cottage, which he named Wynstay, in 1875. Wynne set out to establish a park-like estate on the property in the English pictureesue tradition. To this end he acquired the largest land holding in Mount Wilson, on top of a hill that is now a dominant position in the settlement. Wynne built a second and larger cottage. Yarawwa, and later a larger U-shaped timber residence with a verandah on the three sides. This structure served the needs of the Wynne family until 1923 when Richard Wynne's grandson built the present Wynstay, a large sandstone house in the Georgian Revival style. The property is today owned by Mr & Mrs Smart; Mrs Smart is a direct descendant of Richard Wynne.
Description Estate and grounds The estate comprises the top of the hill at Mount Wilson, ending the axial view up the Avenue, its main street, and skirted by the road which winds to the east and west around Wynstay. This ability to be read in the round gives the estate much of its visual power and presence, with open space, a rich collection of mostly exotic 19th century tree plantings including a number of rare and unusual conifers, and built elements such as the Turkish Bathouse and hexagonal stone gate house are visible as incidents in the foliage or view from the road.
A series of drives and roads within the estate edged by c.1m tall crenellated rubble stone walls approach the main house via the Turkish Bath (western driveway), and more indirectly via a southern driveway which winds around the brow of the hilltop past stables, old Wynstay, the cottage and Gate House.
Plantings define field edges and garden "rooms" within this large area, in a most picturesque composition, no doubt deliberately intended to display Wynne's wealth and taste.
Elements of the estate include grazing fields, inner and outer garden areas, paved "courtyard" spaces both near the house and further out (south) in the garden, linking paths between buildings, and a more recent service and propagation area of polythene tube or tunnel houses east of the main house and on a lower terrace.Read, S., 8/2004
Key tree, shrub and other plantings include:
Abies normanniana, Caucasian fir, fine specimen west of house on lawn; Picea smithiana, Himalayan spruce (2: one near the house; one near the stables block/Old Wynstay); Illicium anisatum, five spice bush; Daphne odora cv.'Rubra' and "Alba", pink and white daphne; Viburnum davidii; V.tinus, laurustinus; Chamaecyparis lawsoniana, Lawson's false cypress (several, very large - one behind (south of) the house is multi-trunked as its lower branches have rooted in the ground and their tips have kept growing forming a circular grove; New Zealand species such as: Pittosporum eugenioides, tarata/lemonwood; Corokia cotoneaster, korokio; Cordyline australis, ti kauka/cabbage tree; Libocedrus plumosa, kawaka/native cedar (several, in pairs, planted formally); Griselinia lucida, puka/broadleaf; Nothofagus fusca, red beech; Pinus griffithii/P.wallichiana, Bhutan pine (long needles, 20–30 cm cone, curved, hanging); P.ponderosa, Western yellow pine; Picea abies "Inversa", dwarf drooping Norway spruce - on a raised driveway bed near the Turkish Bath House; Cedrus deodara, Himalayan cedar; C.atlantica and C.a.'Glauca', Atlas and blue Atlas cedar (very tall specimen near the stables block); Pinus ponderosa; Cupressus macrocarpa, Monterey cypress (avenue/former windbreak?) adjoining the stables/central drive on hill top); C.m.'Aurea', golden Monterey cypress Araucaria bidwillii, Bunya Bunya pine (2); Arbutus unedo, Mediterranean /'Irish' strawberry tree (several - almost a weed says the owner); Sequoiadendron giganteum, redwood/big tree;