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The concept of a long convalescence after debilitating surgery or a lingering illness is almost incomprehensible in an age when the demand for hospital beds is so great that patients are discharged as quickly as possible. Yet 100 years go, steamers regularly travelled from Circular Quay down the Parramatta River taking patients to a convalescent hospital for up to four weeks of rest and recuperation in peaceful surroundings. That institution, the Thomas Walker Convalescent Hospital, is still a striking landmark on the river’s southern bank, about five kilometres downstream from the Duck River and the Silverwater Bridge. Across Yaralla Bay, also on the southern bank, is another and more significant heritage building, Yaralla House, the work of two of Australia’s leading 19th century architects, Edmund Blackett and John Sulman. The Yaralla Estate is described as ‘an exceptionally rare example of a large Edwardian private residential estate in Australia’. Both properties were originally part of the land holding of wealthy businessman and philanthropist, Thomas Walker. Walker commissioned Blackett to ‘design a cottage at Concord’ about 1860. The ‘cottage’ became a twostorey Victorian Italianate mansion with a four-storey Italianate tower. Upon Walker’s death, his daughter Eadith (later Dame Eadith) asked Sulman to draw up additions to Blackett’s design, and these were completed in 1899. Eadith never married, but her wealth enabled her to socialise with the rich and famous, and entertain royalty. After her death in 1937, trustees gave her estate to the New South Wales Government to establish the Dame Eadith Walker Convalescent Hospital. The Convalescent hospital was closed in 1988. The property is now under the control of the Central Sydney Area Health Service and has been used as a dialysis unit. The Thomas Walker Convalescent Hospital was also the work of John Sulman (later Sir John), and is regarded as his finest work in Australia. It has ‘national heritage significance as a rare major institution which has survived…from the nineteenth century’. A competition was held for the design of the hospital, but for reasons undisclosed, the judges’ decision was overturned, and Sulman’s architectural firm was handed the assignment. Construction began in 1891 and it was officially opened two years later. Thomas Walker had set aside £100,000 in his will to cover building and maintenance costs, but it soon became clear this was not enough, and Eadith, her mother Joanna, and family friend Anne Masefield (Mrs John Sulman) put up a further £50,000. Patients’ needing convalescence were referred by several Sydney hospitals, including Royal Prince Alfred, St Vincent’s, Sydney Hospital, and Burwood and Croydon local hospitals. No fees were charged, and the hospital’s only revenue came from the interest on part of Walker’s endowment. The former convalescent hospital is now the Rivendell Child Adolescent and Family Unit. Sources: Concord Heritage Society webpage www.concordheritage.asn/au S. Coupe, 1983, Concord, a Centenary History, Council of the Municipality of Concord, pp. 73-78 State Heritage Register, www.heritage.nsw.gov.au |
