Blackwall foreshore

(Random walkies)

Off down to the Blackwall foreshore this morning. Nice and nippy, no breeze, magpies squawking and sparrows twittering in the trees, the gentle lap of water against private jetties and the jingle of dogs' leads as they trotted past with their owners.

The foreshore looks out across the water to St Huberts Island, Daleys Point and Saratoga and Davistown. It's fringed with private jetties and moorings with old wooden dingies tied up on tide ropes. There are clumps of mangroves here and there an small stands of pines and paperbarks. The park runs from Blackwall Mountain to the point behind the bowls club where the boat ramps are.


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Lovely old Federation (circa 1890 - circa 1915) place near McMasters Road. (There's a wee carpark opposite McMasters. Go through it to the park, turn left and it's 3 or 4 houses along.)

Can't find a chimney like that earlier than 1890. The chimney pot is as new as it looks but they're often replaced. The style and age of materials of the the chimney stack is the key.

That pleasant little portico is of the same period. Either Arts & Crafts (circa 1890 - circa 1915) or Federation Bungalow (circa 1890 - circa 1915). I plump for Bungalow.

Can't find this house in my Hist List. That just means its origins are uncertain. But I'll stumble across an old photo of it in the library eventually.


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The front section is original 1950s. The age and style of the roof materials are definitely fifties though the windows and walls have obviously been renovated.

It'll be interesting to see how the extension looks when they've finished. It does look like it could be in keeping with the original section to some extent.


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These people have chosen one of the colour combinations I most loathe. But other than that, the house is quite pleasant. The octagonal window is clunky but I like the rectangular repro windows and the veranda is lovely.

How much of this house is original is hard to say. The section under the back roof is not. The main roof (with the octagonal window) looks like a new steeper-pitched roof over the oldest section of the house. The portico and the pillars I'm not even going to try to date. They could be repro, second-hand or original. I can't tell under that paint.

The steps are badly cracked as you can see. They and the white thingies beside them are inter-war, between the 1st and 2nd World Wars. Steps and verandas are often updated and so can be younger than the oldest part of the house. Having a gander at the foundations would give me a better idea of the age of this house.


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Sometimes I get a nice surprise when I date a building. Sometimes they turn out to be older than I think at first glance. When I took the photo of this one I was thinking Federation (circa 1890 - circa 1915). But the book (Apperly, Irving & Reynolds' Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture) puts it at circa 1840 to circa 1890, Victorian Georgian.

Ignore that square hip on the roof. I'm pretty sure that's recent. Look instead at the shape of the roof without the square hip, at the shape of the veranda roof, the chimney, the boxed eaves and the two narrow windows on the left. Those windows have stone lintels and flat arches which are gone from domestic architecture by circa 1915, according to the book.

It was a nice walk. Not terribly long but walking beside the water is always nice. Didn't notice your dad's house, Jimmy. What end of the foreshore is it?