Lemonpeel Cottage

(Wagstaffe walkies #2)



Wagstaffe Hall Mulhall Street Wagstaffe. The local community hall, as evidenced by the community look about the place and the notices in the windows on the right.

The style could be Federation (circa 1890 - c. 1915) but I doubt if the building is. Didn't find a date on it and can't find a date for it online. Going on what I can see of the population growth in Wagstaffe, I'd guesstimate it at Inter War (circa 1915 - c. 1940), bearing in mind that community buildings often have retro designs where local residents are startled by more up-to-the-minute stuff.

Brett and Sarah were married there last year and say it has "polished floor boards and white french doors that open onto a verandah, which overlooks the water". There's a nice bit of lawn out there off the veranda, right next to the ferry wharf. The Killcare Wagstaffe Trust meet there apparently and the Bouddi Society shows flicks there and there's tai chi and you can hire it for functions and all the usual community stuff.

There was a young kookaburra sitting in the pine tree (right edge of photo) having a mid-morning chuckle. The kookas have been very active lately, much more than this time last year.

All today's photos are within cooee of each other and the wharf. Wagstaffe's not a big place. It's got five streets.



Rather pleasant. A holiday rental right next to Wagstaffe Wharf and this dingy photo.



Lemonpeel Cottage gate Wagstaff Avenue Wagstaffe. My favourite house name of all the house names I've seen so far. Most of those I've seen so far are along the lines of Didjabringabeer, Ruo Emoh, Dave's Shack and Thistle Do.



Wagstaff Avenue. Might be 1900s (Federation) might not. Probably is. Ditto the place on the right. That was even nicer but had, from a photography point of view, a badly placed bush.

You can see how close the bush is. Birds could be heard whistling and the kookaburras laughing and a couple of cockatoos flapped among the trees. Over that rise is Lobster Beach and the mouth of Broken Bay leading out to the Tasman Sea.



Smart-looking Inter-War California Bungalow (circa 1915 - c. 1940) on Wagstaff Avenue, one block back from the water. Love the contrasts of the white and greens and purple and blue. Today was a great day for photos.

Bloody hell, it's dinnertime already. I've been fart-arsing about on the computer all afternoon. See yer Wednesday.

Steyne Road

(Saratoga walkies #5-ish)

Warm as toast today. Warm autumn sun, a nice cool breeze and a blue blue sky. Lovely and nippy in the mornings and warm afternoons. Perfect.



Steyne Road from the View Street Wharf Saratoga. Across the waterline there you can see 3 Federation (circa 1890 - c. 1915) cottages. Between the 2nd and 3rd is an eighties or nineties house. Looks eighties with those round columns on the veranda though the colour scheme is very now.

Behind that row of houses you can see a fifties house (white) ans another circa 1900 house (white, green roof) though that place could be right up to the 1940s.

On the right, lurking behind the palms and that lovely big frangipani, is a seventies place. There were dozens of 2 storey places built along the Brisbane Water foreshores in the seventies and you know how I hate seventies architecture.

In the last row of houses up the hill there's mostly seventies places again, short cul-de-sacs driven up into the bush during the seventies population boom. In between there's a fair amount of eighties reno's of forties houses and fresh builds. This area of Saratoga hasn't seen as many new houses and reno's as the area around Veterans Hall. The commuter ferry doesn't come round here.

Those circa 1900 houses were really tricky to photograph. From the road they're all but invisible. A lot of them've sold the backyard and there's another house in it. Though there was one place with its original mulberry tree, an elderly lemon tree, a pumpkin patch and the original dunny.



A small weatherboard cottage on Steyne Road soaking up the autumn sun. Love that faded red roof against the white boards. 1940s I'd say, judging from the age of the sides and that great mass of fishbone fern at the front, maybe once a holiday house now lived in full time but just as likely to be the family home built just after the war.



Another cottage on Steyne Road. I'd want to see the other side of this one before I put an age to it. I think the back's older than the front. The roof shape and the front look 1940s and so does that fence and gate. Those windows at the front are not narrow enough to be earlier than 1920 I think. I like the colours. Very cottage-y and smart.

This place and the photos above look across the water to Gosford, Longnose (Point Frederick) and East Gosford. Only the cemetery-cum-park on the tip of Longnose is visible at this angle. (Similar view, map)


Fillum

Went and saw Hot Fuzz yesterday. It was bloody hilarious. Pisstake, filmed in a little village Somerset, kick-arse soundtrack, Lurch, dead-beat detectives, runaway swans, explosions, murder, nutters, a priest who says "fuck off Grasshopper", high street shoot-outs and the good guys win in the end. And that bit where the guy gets clonked by a bit of Perp Dec, very funny in a very bloody way.