Dunmore House
Dunmore House is a heritage-listed residence at 557 Paterson Road, Bolwarra Heights, in the Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1830 to 1833 by William and Andrew Lang. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 16 August 2012.
History
Lang family's emigration to New South Wales
William Lang of Greenock in Scotland, was a wood merchant specialising in block making, coopering and ship's joinery. He married Mary Dunmore and four children were born to them:- John Dunmore, born August, 1799.
- George Dunmore, born 1801.
- Andrew, born 1804.
- Isabella Ninian, born 1806.
The Laird, Colonel Thomas Brisbane, who was later to be knighted and become Governor of New South Wales, negotiated to purchase Dochra from the Langs for £800, but the purchase fell through and the Langs remained on the farm.
John entered Glasgow University at the age of 12. After 8 years he graduated with a Master of Arts degree, later completing his Doctorate in Divinity.
George commenced his studies in Medicine, but was offered a glamorous position of superintendent of a large sugar plantation at Lucia in the West Indies. However, his patron was killed just before George left, putting George's future in jeopardy. His brother, John, wrote to his friend Captain Piper in New South Wales regarding a career in the new country for his brother. As a result, on 24 April 1821, George sailed from London for Hobart on the Brixton under Captain Lush. He arrived in Hobart in the following August. He then proceeded to Sydney arriving 16 September 1821, a few months before Sir Thomas Brisbane was to arrive to relieve Lachlan Macquarie of his position as governor.
John Dunmore Lang left for New South Wales at the urging of his brother George, to raise the moral tone of the colony. He sailed from Leith on 14 October 1822 on the under Captain James Muddle. Most of his fellow travellers were settlers with grants and some were already agriculturalists.
The two elder boys now being so far away from the family, those of the immediate family remaining is Scotland, chose to emigrate also. In 1823, the Lang family, comprising William and Mary and their children Andrew and Isabella, accompanied by one female servant, who travelled steerage at a cost of £40, left Leith aboard the vessel Greenock.
They were greeted on arrival at Campbell's wharf by their older sons. The Brisbanes also welcomed them, with William being offered a grant of 2000 acres, and pledging to take 20 convicts. Of these, he received four. William and Andrew began work as builders in the rapidly developing town of Sydney, a logical extension of his father's trade in Scotland.
Securing the Land Grant and the establishment of Dunmore
On his arrival in Sydney, George Lang obtained a job in the mercantile house of Riley and Walker through the goods offices of Deputy Commissary, General William Wemyss. Later, George moved to Parramatta where he joined the Commissariat Department.He had been a conscientious worker, not having given time to the development of his land grants and in one case, not having even made a selection of land.
George did not have a Home Governor's Order for land. However, he applied for a grant of land on 5 March 1822 and he was granted an initial 1000 acres from Governor Macquarie, adjacent Standish Harris' land. The site he chose was between the future villages of Largs and Paterson. He later purchased an additional 600 ha and named the property Dunmore. Cecily Mitchell ascribes the naming of Dunmore to William Lang's wife's maiden name, Mary Dunmore. This is verified in an implicit way in John Dunmore Lang's History of New South Wales.
Conditions applicable to the grant included the following:
- George Lang was not to sell within five years.
- The government reserved the right to take out timber deemed fit for naval purposes.
- And that grant "procure and have assigned to him 10 convicts who were to be clothed and fed until the expiration or remission of their respective sentences." The convicts were to be used exclusively on the grant of land.
Dunmore House was built by Andrew and his father William. It was possibly commenced in 1827 and completed in 1830. These dates are quoted differently in many references, ranging from a commencement in 1830 to a completion in 1833. J. D. Lang writes that his brother took possession of the land in 1826, but "as he had to reside in Sydney the whole of that year, he entrusted it to the management of an emancipated convict overseer, who proved a very inefficient servant, and did very little in the way of improving it."
Historical Records of Australia give an account of Andrew's later representations to the Governor to acquire further lands. He wrote to Governor Bourke from Dunmore, Hunter's River, 30 April 1832 explaining that his brother George Lang arrived in the colony as a free settler in 1821, and that he, Andrew, as an heir to his brother's estate, was claiming 400 acres of land that had been offered to his brother from Governor Macquarie, but had not been selected by his brother. Governor Brisbane, to whom George had been well known, had granted George a further 1000 acres. Andrew explained that until 1824, his brother had been employed in His Majesty's Service as a store keeper in the Commissariat Department and was unable to leave his station and go in search of land. He left the Department on 24 December 1824 to settle on his land at Hunter's River, then died in 1825. The recorded reasons vary. He "was seized with an inflammatory fever...of which he died on 18th January 1825" according to one record. In Cynthia Hunter's work "The Settlers of Paterson's Plains" wherein George Lang is said to have drowned in the wreck of a sailing coaster between Sydney and Newcastle in January 1825.
In April 1827, Andrew was seeking to secure further lands comprising 400 acres immediately adjacent to his 1000 acres property, Dunmore. In the meantime, this land had been claimed by Mr George Sparke in August 1831. Lang wrote and warned him to "desist from improving it in any way until the case was referred to."
Governor Richard Bourke wrote to Viscount Goderich in Despatch number 73 in relation to this matter. This correspondence was acknowledged by the Right Honourable E. G. Stanley on 15 April 1833. The request of both Andrew Lang, as well as Mrs Lang, whom had also applied, was not accepted. Andrew Lang wanted alternative land, if he could not obtain the 400 acre adjacent parcel of land. The influence of Reverend Dr Lang was impetus enough for Governor Bourke to look further toward a positive answer.
In reply the Right Honourable E. G. Stanley wrote:
"The application of Mr Andrew Lang to be allowed to benefit by the Order for 500 acres, given by Governor Macquarie to his late brother, is totally inadmissible."
Standish Lawrence Harris had 2000 acres adjacent to Lang's grant. In 1825, he purchased 1114 acres which he named Goulburn Grove. This gave him an area of land from the banks of the Paterson River to the Hunter River adjoining Maitland Vale north of the city of Maitland. Harris became insolvent in 1833 and his properties were put up for auction in 1835. Andrew Lang purchased 1400 acres for 24/- an acre. He estimated that it cost five to six pounds an acre to clear the impenetrable brush containing huge forest trees. This gave him a large and superb estate with five miles of river frontage.
J. D. Lang describes the property;
Settling Dunmore
Just prior to moving north, the Langs sold some of their furniture, and the following advertisement appeared in The Australian:
"To be sold by Public Auction at the residence of Messrs. William and Andrew Lang builders Elizabeth Street, on Wednesday December 29th, 1824, an elegant assortment of Spanish mahogany furniture as follows:
1 set of Dining Tables 14' long; 4 Pembroke Tables; 1 Card Table; 2 Tea Tables;1 Ladies work table; 2 Chests of Drawers with wardrobe; Post and tent bedsteads etc., etc."
Andrew and his father William took possession of the property on the Paterson River in 1825, but did not settle the land until 1826. "The settlement of the Scots Church in Sydney having been attended with much greater difficulty and expense than was anticipated, and certain influential Scotsmen in the colony having rather augmented than diminished the burden that was thus entailed on its friends, my relatives had been induced to make common cause with myself, in bringing whatever capital and credit they could command in the colony to bear upon the ultimate accomplishment of that object. My brother was consequently left with comparatively little capital to commence upon his land."
Not only did they build the church, but the Langs had also to contribute their own monies for the completion of the church.
By his brother's account, Andrew Lang was a frugal man, who instead of following the trend of the surrounding landowners in mortgaging their properties and purchasing sheep and cattle, "he remained satisfied with the few that he possessed, and determined not to buy more until he could pay for them."
"Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house." Proverbs XXIV 27. Andrew Lang's method of going about establishment of the property, was scriptural according to J D Lang, when he drew on this verse to exemplify an object lesson of good stewardship. He put forward the development of Dunmore as a good example of this passage in action. He and his family were all given to take evangelistic opportunities.
By 1827, some dwelling had been erected at Dunmore, as Mrs Lang had furniture made by Quong and Tchion, cabinetmakers of Sydney. This was as J. D. Lang described the property: "The first dwelling erected was formed of rough slabs of split timber, the lower ends of which were sunk in the ground, the upper brought together in a wall plate. It was thatched with reeds or coarse grass, and contained three apartments-a parlour or sitting room, a store room, and a bedroom, each of which served a number of different purposes as required. The kitchen was detached, and was inhabited by a convict servant and his wife. The bare ground served as the floor, and the gaps between the vertical slabs were grouted with a composition of mud, to form a plaster. The walls were white washed inside and out. It was fitted with glass windows and a timber floor at a later stage. It served as the farmhouse for three or four years."
By 1830, with the aid of convict labour, they had erected two stone buildings incorporating a barn and granary, dairy, kitchen and store. The two stone pavilions were later used as outbuildings upon completion of the two storey stone residence, which formed the next phase in the establishment of the Dunmore buildings. The wooden buildings were given up to the farm overseer. In the interim period, these stone buildings were fitted up and used as a second temporary residence. These buildings are still standing and after significant reconstruction and stabilisation, are in use today, and form two sides of a quadrangle behind the main house.
J. D. Lang goes on to describe the final residence, adjoining the out buildings "...on an elevated and commanding situation, between the two lagoons, and about half a mile from the river. It is a two story house, built of hewn stone, having a verandah or covered portico all around." That the rear single storey flanking walls are completed in ruled render, would be accounted for by the fact of the verandah running around the whole house originally. It is therefore likely that the southern verandah was closed in to form a store room off the kitchen and a laundry at a later time. The turned balusters in the now roofed parapet of the south east and southwest flanking rooms are not explained in Lang's account. It is assumed that the rooms were a later addition. Also, as the stone pavilions were constructed prior to the main house, with direct reference to the detail and quality of stone work on the north facade, it would appear that the dressed facing stones are an applique or veneer, applied when the stonework for the main house was being cut and dressed, and as a final aesthetic touch to relate the earlier buildings to the newer homestead in their detail and outward presentation. Symmetry and congruency of detail are important elements in the Colonial Georgian style of building.
In the Sydney Gazette of 9 January 1828, W. and A. Lang advertised that they were going to erect a flourmill on Paterson's River. It would appear that the mill was ultimately run by the husband of Isabella, Robert Muir.
From Robert Muir's diary, he went to Largs on 2 August 1838 at three thirty bound for Plymouth. On 15 September 1838 the steamer Juno left for Plymouth. It arrived at 11pm on 16 September. He arrived in Sydney Tuesday 15 January 1839.
On Sunday 21 June 1840 he went to Maitland arriving in the afternoon. On Monday 22 JUne he visited Dunmore where he remained all day. He again visited Dunmore on Thursday 25 June, staying until Friday 26 June. Conjecturally one would conclude that he met Isabella Ninian Lang on this occasion, leading ultimately to their subsequent marriage in Scots Church, Sydney on 8 July 1845.
Muir's mill operated on the banks of the Paterson River at Woodville. Four masted barques came up the Paterson to Woodville to procure flour from Mitchell's flour mills. An old boiler-probably a ship's boiler- was to be seen until recently and still may be, in a creeper covered building on the water's brink, where the old punt used to be. In this building, the first flour mill worked by steam was erected by Mr Robert Muir. Later on the mill changed hands.
The road to the Paterson River was diverted from its original route as indicated as a "Sufferance Road" on the accompanying map, to make straighter and more direct approaches to the new bridge, constructed in 1864 or 1865. Until then the road passed far closer to Dunmore House than it does now present, skirting the crown of the ridge upon which the house stands, and leading to the punt that was located to the west of the present position of Dunmore Bridge.
This would explain the definition of gate positions on the eastern side of the immediate house yard, and the presence of the stand of giant bamboo in its position to the southeast of the house, a feature that designated an entry point in properties of the day.