Site of Smith's Folly

Year started

1909

Demolished

c.1920

About the Site of Smith's Folly

Opposite Hatton’s Cottage on the corner of Blaxland Road and Pope Street, there once stood two buildings.

The first was Clifton House, the residence of Samuel Small (1834-1910).

This was followed by construction in 1909 of the Hampton Court Residential Hotel by Harry Smith (1862-1913), also known as Harry Curzon-Smith of Curzon Hall. It was intended to be one of the most modern tourist hotels in the State of NSW. Smith arrived in Sydney from Ontario with his parents in 1878. He worked with his father as a travelling salesman, manufactured soda water, and by 1894 became the lessee of railway refreshment rooms across the state and Caves House at Jenolan.

In 1884, Harry married Isabell Curzon Webb, and by 1900 had completed Curzon Hall in Marsfield as a twenty-room mansion. The Hampton Court Tourist Residential Hotel was to be a five storey, five star, sanatorium with 70 bedrooms. Smith anticipated that Hatton's Flat would become a popular picnic ground with tourists flocking to Ryde.

Smith died in 1913 and the building was never completed. The shell became known as 'Smith's Folly'.

ln 1920, William Sundin announced plans to recycle the bricks into a number of shops and cottages. These buildings have also vanished and in 2014 residential apartments were built on this site opposite Ryde Library and the remainder of the block is to be redeveloped.

Location

219 Blaxland Road, Ryde 2112  View Map

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