The Raphael Mackeller Stores is a heritage-listed former store and now museum located at 4–6 Kendall Lane in the inner city Sydney suburb of The Rocks in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1853 to 1854 for Joseph George Raphael. It is also known as The Rocks Toy Museum, Unwin's Coach House, Coach House, and The Coachhouse. The property is owned by Property NSW, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 10 May 2002.
History The Raphael Mackeller Stores were reputedly erected as stores and possibly as stables and later used for small-scale manufacturing activities. Vacated in the 1980s the buildings were left disused for several years. The buildings still contain some machinery related to their former manufacturing and/or store functions. Although commonly known and referred to in the past as "The Coach House", the doorways and the lane access are barely adequate for manoeuvring a horse and cart or coach, making it unlikely that the building was ever used as a coach house.
The Raphael Mackeller Stores are two narrow stone buildings facing Kendall Lane. They were built along the rear boundary of the properties now called Nos. 77, 79 and 81 George Street North (earlier known as Nos. 81, 83 and 85 George Street respectively), being Unwin's Stores. The Raphael Mackeller Stores is generally considered as separate from the George Street properties it is purported to have originally served.
The subject land was originally granted to Captain John Piper in June 1828 by Lieutenant General Ralph Darling, Governor of the Colony. The allotment was part of the Sydney Hospital's stage 2 plan in the 1790s. When the land was not required for future extensions, William Balmain was granted a lease on the property and by 1807 he had surrendered the lease to the NSW Government. Frederick Wright Unwin gained title to the land in 1839, and his subdivision of 1841 included these properties.
Construction proper of the shops and houses fronting George Street commenced a few years earlier in 1843 by Unwin. No. 85 George Street was completed in November 1844 and No. 79 George Street was finished in the later half of 1845. Dr Frederick Mackellar purchased the four tenements in February 1853 for £2,100 and his trustees re-leased the buildings to the Crown and the then NSW Minister for Public Works in December 1902 for the sum of £5,932/15/4. The Mackeller Store located to the rear of 79-81 George Street was erected in 1853-4 by Dr Frederick Mackeller, physician and surgeon and owner of 79-81 George Street, as an extension of the original store building (Raphael Stores) built to the rear of 77 George Street.
The Raphael Store (at the rear of 77 George Street) was built in 1853 as store/warehouse. It was probably built for Joseph George Raphael, a merchant, publican, clothier, seaman's shipping agent, member of the NSW Parliament, and owner of 77 George Street. The building was constructed around the southern wall and chimney of Samson's Cottage (partially demolished). The present Samson's Cottage was rebuilt in 1991 to the same configuration. The close match in style and construction between the two sections (Raphael and Mackeller Stores) suggests a close cooperation between the owners and possibly the same builder.
For most of its history the Raphael Mackeller Stores were occupied by tenants of Unwin's Stores, including several Chinese businesses. In 1860 Nom, Hing & Co., Chinese merchants were the tenants. In 1864 Henry Murray, grocer was a part tenant followed by in 1865 Nom, Who & Co. and from 1866 to 1868 Chin Long was the storekeeper. The most recent tenant before the original conservation and adaptive reuse works in the late 1980s was Stanton Catchlove & Co who moved into 2 Kendall Lane in 1930 and manufactured sheep dip and soft soap. The company gradually took over 4 Kendall Lane from 1932 to 1936. They also ran a ship's chandlery from 1946. Stanton Catchlove moved out in 1986 and in 1990 was operating in Alexandria.
By May 2005, the Raphael Mackeller Stores was in use as the Rocks Toy Museum. This involved extensive conservation and adaptive reuse of the building to accommodate modern services and fitout occurring in 1988- 1990. In 2005, the Raphael Mackeller Stores were once again converted to accommodate the Rocks Discovery Museum (opened in December 2005), at which time, further conservation and interpretation works occurred.Conybeare Morrison 2006
Description The Raphael Mackeller Stores or Coach House is a narrow stone building facing Kendall Lane. It was built along the rear boundary of properties now called Nos. 77, 79 and 81 George Street North (earlier known, as Nos. 81, 83 and 85 George Street, respectively). The Coach House is now generally considered as separate from the George Street properties it originally served, and is now usually referred to as the Coach House or as Nos. 2 & 4 Kendall Lane. The justification for the "Coach House" name is fairly tenuous, but it seems to be the currently accepted name and so is used here as well.
The Coach House was reputedly erected as a store and stables over the period 1853–1854. It was later used for small-scale manufacturing activity, but was vacated in the 1980s and left disused. It still contains some machinery related to its former manufacturing and/or store functions. The doorways and the lane access are barely adequate for manoeuvring a horse and cart, let alone a coach, making it unlikely that the building was ever used as a coach house.
The three storey sandstone coach house was built in two stages. The first part on 77 George Street was built in 1853 and the second part on 79 George Street was built to the south in 1853–1854. This is visible from the continuous vertical joint that runs along the western and eastern facades of the building. The rough face sandstone block walls have six loading bays on the first and second floors, with three on the ground floor and one on Kendall Lane. The doors are framed and braced and all have hardwood lintels. Two cat head beams are at roof level to the north and middle doors projecting through above the loading bays. A pulley mechanism remains over the top level northern door. A corrugated iron gable roof has capped sandstone gable ends at the north and south ends of the building and over the continuous joint in the Kendall Lane Coachhouse at the boundary between Nos 77 and 79-81 George Street. The north wall is the original sandstone wall to the 1844 Samson's Cottage.Tropman 1989: 34
Industrial archaeology Lineshafting and Associated Motor Drive At ground floor level of No. 2 Kendall Lane, there is a short lineshaft mounted high on the east wall, near the ceiling. The shaft has a diameter of and is approximately long. It is mounted in four plain sleeve metal (probably brass) bearings on four fabricated steel cantilever brackets attached to the east wall, with the axis of the shaft at approximately out from the wall, and approximately above the uneven floor.
The shaft has five pulleys for use with flat leather belts, but all of the belts have gone. Three of the pulleys are solid discs made of laminated wood, and the other two (larger) pulleys have laminated wood rims and wooden spokes. The pulleys are (from north to south end of the shaft):
(a) diameter (spoked) x face width; (b) diameter (spoked) x face width; (c) diameter (solid) x face width; (d) diameter (solid) x face width; (e) diameter (solid) x face width;
The largest pulley, (a), is at the northern end of the shaft, in line with the motor pulley, and was obviously used for the flat belt transferring mechanical power from the electric motor to the shaft. The smallest pulley,(e), is located at the southern end of the lineshaft, directly beneath a hole in the floor above, and was used for a belt transmitting power from the lineshaft to a small mixing machine at first (middle) floor level, used by Stanton Catchlove for making semi-liquid soap. The other three pulleys are located in between (a) and (e), and were used for flat belt drives to other machinery (since removed) at ground floor level, mainly mixing machines for making much sheep dip and soft soap, again for Stanton Catchlove.
The shaft was probably installed in by Vita-Lick, or in by Stanton Catchlove, and was certainly used for many years by Catchlove. However, the pulleys look much older than 1930, and it is possible that the shaft was installed earlier, or that the pulleys were second-hand from some other site. The motor for driving the lineshaft was tucked beneath a wooden staircase at the northern end of the ground floor area, and is partly guarded (for operator safety) by a roughly made chain-wire mesh screen. The motor was a relatively modern "C & W' Type A, 3 phase AC, , variable speed, 550-1950 rpm, electric motor, made by Charles and Hunting, Melbourne. The motor ran at constant speed internally, but the output shaft speed is set at any speed between 550 rpm and 1950 rpm by varying the setting of internal intermediate conical drive pulleys. The internal conical drive setting, and hence output speed, is varied by means of a handwheel and flexible shaft connected to the motor easing. The pulley on the motor output shaft is cast-iron, diameter x face width, indicating that the lineshaft ran at a modest 80 to 280 rpm.
Mixer At middle floor level in the north section of the Coach House (No. 2 Kendall Lane), there is a small mixing machine which was used by Stanton Catchlove & Co. for making semi-liquid soap. The machine has a cylindrical sheet-metal drum, about diameter x tall, with an open top and a lift-off thin pressed-metal lid, like a billy lid. The drum has a hemispherical bottom in which three concentric sets of circular mixing blades revolved, each set consisting of six semicircular rods spaced 60 degrees apart. The blades are on a short horizontal shaft connected by gears to an upper shaft which carries a pair of flat-belt pulleys. The upper shaft also acts as a pivot on which the drum could be tilted to discharge the contents.
Power was provided by a continuously running flat leather belt, which came up through a hole in the floor from the ground-floor lineshaft immediately beneath the mixer, and passed around the machine's pulleys. A handle with metal prongs enabled the mixer operator to slide the belt onto one pulley which was keyed to the gear shaft, and which then drove the mixing blades, or to slide the moving belt onto the second pulley which was not keyed but which rotated freely on the shaft and allowed the blades to stop. The combination of motor speed range, pulley sizes, and gearing ratio, gives the mixer blades a theoretical speed of 70 rpm to 250 rpm.
The mixer was probably installed by Catchlove on occupying the Coach House in , but might have been in use earlier at their previous premises. The machine had no visible brand, but appeared to be a "mass" produced mixer rather than a one-off custom-made item. It resembles a food mixer, and it is likely that the blades could be removed for cleaning. The drum appears to be made of tin-plated or galvanised sheet steel, with some of the galvanizing or plating flaking off. More sturdy brackets, pivots etc., are riveted to the outside of the drum at strategic locations. The drum still contains a residue of (presumably) soap. The whole mixer is very dirty, but in fairly intact condition, except that the drive belt is missing, and a drain cock has been removed from a threaded outlet at the bottom of the drum.
Winch and Catshead Pulley