Gone

Early this year the old wooden buildings around St John the Baptist church in Blackwall Road Woy Woy were demolished. There's now some housing units in their place and the church itself is unmolested. (Photo of the units when the builders' fence comes down.)

A couple of weeks ago the buildings below, on Blackwall Road opposite the church, were also demolished. There's a nice big block of land there now and presumably they'll build matching units on it.



Weird little building that appeared to be a fifties extension to the old wooden classroom buildings (see top of post). It sat alone in a small sea of ashphalt facing the roundabout on the corner of Blackwall Road and Victoria Road.



St John the Baptist Presbytery. It sat on Blackwall Road opposite the church, between the fifties classroom and the old house below. It was nothing out of the ordinary but a pleasant enough building of its type.



This old house sat to the left of the Presbytery on Blackwall Road. There's no reference to it in my notes or online. I think it was or is used as a homeless shelter and called Mary McKillop House.

The Mary McKillop connection is through the Josephite Sisters who run the Catholic Primary School at Woy Woy South. McKillop was their founder. MacKillop was also responsible for the Holy Cross church and St Joseph's Orphanage at Kincumber South.

The windows on this building are narrow enough to put the style in Federation Bungalow (circa 1890 - c. 1915) but the angle of its roofs are more Inter War California Bungalow (c. 1915 - c. 1940). I'm putting it down as 1915-1940. Windows have been recycled before.

For a gander at the building progress, go down Blackwall Road from the station to the roundabout at Victoria Road. For all the recent Woy Woy demolitions go here.


A lump

Belinda Emmett died a couple of days ago. I knew of her vaguely as an Australian TV actor. Her obituary today and a couple of Dear Old Things this morning said she was a local girl.

From the SMH obit:

"Born in Gosford to Michael and Laraine Emmett, Belinda grew up at Umina, on the NSW Central Coast, and was educated at St John's in Woy Woy, St Joseph's, Gosford, and Corpus Christi, Tuggerah. Her family called her Belle.

At school she performed in musical theatre and fronted the pop band Big Baby Jam. She worked in a record store and, after leaving school, with Coast FM radio station. She made her professional debut in 1993, at 19, in the Gosford Musical Society's production of The Gingerbread Man. She also sang with two jazz duos."

She survived one bout of cancer in the nineties then it came back for a second go and got her, poor bugger.

Our Kylie was back onstage the other night. She had a breast cancer scare a couple of years ago but got treatment immediately.

"[Belinda] had first noticed a lump in her breast about two years earlier [than her diagnosis] but had not had it checked."

Had my lump checked out this morning. Doctor says it's an ingrown hair and to eat more carrots.