Skip to main content
  1. The Dictionary of Sydney
  2. Multimedia
  3. View of Clarens in Potts Point taken from left ...

View of Clarens in Potts Point taken from left corner of top division of first ballustrade, 1892-93

By
Laura Praeger
From the collections of the
State Library of New South Wales
[c046100001 / PXA 946]
(Mitchell Library)

Browse

  • Browse
    • Artefacts
    • Buildings
    • Events
    • Natural Features
    • Organisations
    • People
    • Places
    • Structures
    • Entries
    • Multimedia
    • Subjects
    • Roles
    • Contributors
Connections
Appears in
Clairvaux House
Subjects
Residential building Victorian architecture
Buildings
Clarens

Footer

  • Home
  • About
  • Copyright
  • Contact

Footer Secondary

  • Contribute
  • Donate

Praeger, Laura

State Library of New South Wales

Clairvaux House

By the early twentieth century many of Sydney's old estates were subdivided. Their large grounds were too expensive to maintain and as Sydney expanded, land became a premium. Clairvaux House, a grand Victorian house, was built on land purchased from the Wentworth Estate c 1871. A domestic residence until the early twentieth century, the house underwent three subdivisions before being demolished in 1929.

Residential building

Victorian architecture

Clarens

full record ยป

Residence built by Joseph Hyde Potts in Potts Point. During James Martin's ownership, its surrounding garden was famed as one of the 'most architecturally elaborate gardens constructed in Australia'. The gardens were developed in 1853-68 and the novelist Anthony Trollope described the 'garden falling down to the sea' as a 'fairyland'. Its monument of Lysicrates was later moved to the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney. The property was acquired by the Royal Australian Navy in 1941 and then subsequently destroyed, however, elements of the original garden have survived. The navy base HMAS Kuttabul now stands on the site, located adjacent to the Garden Island dockyard.