Westward Cottage

Style

Single storey Victorian cottage

Year constructed

1852

Years modified

1849, 1852, 1920

Year moved and renovated

1993

About Westward Cottage

Located on John Small's 1794 grant, the site of Westward Cottage was first sold in 1841 for £76 to Henry Edmondson, a Sydney tailor. Edmondson sold it to Henry Murray, a Kissing Point carpenter in 1843.

Murray came from Dublin in 1840 and set up as a builder. He may have worked on James Devlin's new house Willandra but like Devlin, Murray went bankrupt. ln 1849, he was forced to sell his land, including his unfinished two-room weatherboard cottage to Sydney timber merchant George Head.

In 1852, Head sold to George Porter, a farmer of North Ryde, for £100. Porter was acting as trustee for a juvenile Henry Watts. The cottage was then rented. One tenant, Frank Wilson, came to Ryde in the early 1850s to work on St Charles Catholic Church as a stonemason.

Another stonemason, David Hartland lived in the cottage in 1884 while working on The Parsonage. Otto Junge operated a laundry here from around 1888 until 1893. Watts died in 1918 and his daughter Jessie Elizabeth Taylor who inherited the property named the cottage Westward, inspired by the view to the Blue Mountains and the sunsets. She lived in the cottage until 1965 and her daughter Lennie lived there until 1978.

Plans for the construction of the Devlin Street underpass in 1989 threatened the cottage. Ryde Council dismantled Westward and relocated it in 1993.

Location

8 Turner Street, Ryde 2112 View Map

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