Normanhurst
Flinders Street and Exhibition Street, C.1921
This photograph shows the house Normanhurst and its grounds, which were redeveloped in the early 1920s to build the Herald & Weekly Times building at the northeast corner of Flinders Street and Exhibition Street.
This photograph was probably taken around September 1921, when workmen are described in an article as clearing the garden of Normanhurst. This large garden extended from the house down the hill to Flinders Street. The grounds were enclosed by a high brick fence built upon a bluestone base.
Normanhurst had two-storeys plus a basement. Built in 1857, it is an early example of an Italianate-style mansion, a style more commonly associated with the later decades of the nineteenth century, particularly the Land Boom. Its difference to many of the later examples of this type of mansion, is its restraint in the use of architectural embellishment.
Over the years, Normanhurst had served a few purposes. Initially, it was the home of a solicitor, and for a time it was a military club. From 1895, until its demolition, it was used as a boarding house.
The Herald & Weekly Times sold the northwest portion of the site occupied by the house to the clothing manufacturer, Alley Brothers. That firm built around 1923 the Alley Building, which still stands at the southeast corner of Exhibition Street and Flinders Lane. The Herald described the Alley Building as a ‘handsome neighbour’ for their new building. The Alley and the Herald buildings do complement each other in scale, albeit the Herald more robust in its architectural expression.
The Herald & Weekly Times redeveloped the remainder of the site, adjacent to Flinders Street, where they built the first stage of their new newspaper office. At the time of its completion in 1923, it was described as the largest newspaper office in Australia. The Flinders Street frontage was doubled in length within five years of the completion of this first stage, due to the growth of this media organisation.
The surrounding houses visible in this photograph, including the three-storey Rochester Lodge (at top left), show that this part of the city remained residential in use and character up until at least the inter-war period, and from then it began to take on a more commercial use. In a history repeats itself scenario, the adaptive re-use of the former Herald & Weekly Times building as apartments in recent years, and other nearby residential development, mark a shift in this part of the city to a return to residential use.