Cheyne's Stables, Outbuilding & Oak Tree

Statement of Significance

Conservation Plan [Farrow/Chinnery, 2010] and so includes both places.
Norman House and Cheyne’s Stables and Outbuilding, a two storey rendered painted granite and brick building with a corrugated iron roof in the Victorian Georgian style completed in c. 1858, and a single storey brick outbuilding with a corrugated iron roof in the Vernacular style built in the mid-to-late-1830s has cultural heritage significance for the following reasons:
Norman House is a rare, substantial, well executed and elegant example of a two storey Victorian Georgian style residence of granite and brick construction, albeit obscured by the present front balcony, and is one of very few two storey residences designed in this style in Western Australia where it is an early example of this style, and Cheyne’s Stables and Outbuilding is one of the earliest surviving buildings at Albany and a rare surviving example in the region of a 1830s stables and outbuilding.
The place evidences the lifestyle of one of Albany’s earliest and most successful European settlers, George Cheyne, and the substantial proportions and solid construction of Norman House illustrate the types of houses aspired to by the middle class, of which it is the most substantial of the early examples in Albany, and the solid brick construction of Cheyne’s Stables and Outbuilding also illustrates Cheyne’s ability and aspiration.
The place is a landmark in the residential part of Stirling Terrace.
The place is highly valued by the community for its associations with the early history of Albany especially early settler George Cheyne, and the Hassells, for its uses under Toc H (1930s), as a high school boys’ hostel (1946-63), and a guest house since 1964, and for its aesthetic qualities.
The place is associated with George Cheyne, for whom it was built, William Carmalt Clifton, John Hassell and his family, particularly his daughter, Ellen Belinda, and her husbands, Captain Peter Nicholson and Frank Rawling Dymes, Miss Annie Dymes, Toc H, and John Norman in whose honour it was renamed by the Methodist Church.
The oak tree is one of the oldest known surviving oak trees in the State.

Physical Description

Some of the notable features of this place include:
• Set behind historic Norman House beside noteworthy mature English oak tree
• Simple rectangular design
• Walls built of sun-dried brick
• Steep pitched gabled corrugated iron roof which is protecting original wooden shingles
• The oldest part of the cottage has the original stump floors
• The west end was verified as the coach house and stables owing to ventilation spaces in the brick walls and the presence of a loft
• Some original windows remain

Some obvious modifications include:
• Brick toilets added to east end
• Some windows replaced
• Corrugated iron roof installed to protect old wooden shingles

History

The following has been mostly extracted from ‘Norman House and Cheyne’s Stables and Outbuilding’, Conservation Plan [Farrow/Chinnery, 2010].
Cheyne’s Stables and Outbuilding is a small single storey building located behind Norman House and is currently vacant, although it is used for storage for the guest house. It consists of three rooms; the floor in the west end room indicates that this area was a stable, the wide opening in the centre of the south façade indicates that the central room could have been used as a carriage room, and the room at the east has a cellar under the timber floor and may have been used for servants.
Cheyne’s Stables and Outbuilding, along with Norman House, was constructed for George Cheyne and his wife Grizzel (Grace). George and Grace (nee Moir) Cheyne were in the first group of ‘free’ settlers to move from Perth to Albany in November 1831 and became one of among the most successful pioneers of this era. Cheyne also encouraged his wife’s family, the Moirs, to emigrate from England and sponsored them in their early setting up days. George Cheyne led developments in whaling, wool, sandalwood exports, general imports and grazing. He operated his own seaport at Cape Riche. He obtained a number of Lots around the Albany jetty, some of which were on the beach front below Stirling Terrace. Norman House and Cheyne’s Stables and Outbuilding are located on Lot 1, which was created from the former suburban Lots S 14 and S13. The two buildings are located on the former Lot S14. From 1842, Cheyne had developed a substantial farm and port at Cape Riche. The farm, “Bonnington Braes,” is now known as the Moir homestead, after the relatives who inherited it (the Cheynes were childless but had an adoptive daughter who married one of Grace’s nephews, Andrew Moir). Cheyne’s business interests in general were extensive and diverse, and included whaling in the Cape Riche area and sandalwood to the north of Cape Riche around the Pallinup River, where he also developed properties with some of his nephews.
There is no documentation available that establishes the exact date of construction but documentary evidence indicates that it was constructed before 1840. A plan surveyed by Philip Chauncey in 1851 shows the house that Cheyne constructed on Lot 15, with a small building located at the rear of Lot 14, which is Cheyne’s Stables and Outbuilding.
Cheyne left Albany in 1860 to reside in England and died in Scotland in 1869. In 1865, Norman House and Cheyne’s Stables and Outbuilding on Lot 14, together with the adjacent Lot 13, were purchased by John Hassell and on Hassell’s death in 1883, passed to his daughter, Ellen Belinda, who was married to Captain Peter Hay Nicholson. When Ellen died in 1913, it passed to her second husband, lawyer Frank Rawling Dymes, and on his death in 1921, to his sister, Annie. She donated the property to Toc H, an allied servicemen’s club, in 1930.

In 1946 the Methodist Church purchased the properties and converted Norman House to a Boys Hostel. Cheyne’s Stables and Outbuilding was used as a recreation area during this time and brick toilets were added to the east end of this building. The hostel at Normal House was closed in 1962 and moved to the old Government Hospital (Vancouver Arts Centre) leaving the house and Cheyne’s Stable and Outbuilding vacant for a period.
In a report on the property printed in the Albany Advertiser in 1963 the writer said:
Norman House bears the hall mark of having been used for some time as a public utility. Gone are the six slender wooden posts, replaced by heavy brick pillars, gone the dainty wooden railings that edged the downstairs verandah, the bird bath, the silver birch, the glorious rose gardens, the pond always filled with floating lillies, gone the four Norfolk pine trees, one placed at the edge of each corner of the house, gone the fruit and almond trees. Remaining is a glorious magnolia tree at the front of the house and at the rear one of the five English Oak trees, a very king among trees of its kind alone, near the one time stables.
Some restoration work was completed in 1994 to Cheyne’s Stables and Outbuilding, when the place was re roofed with galvanised sheeting and fretting external brickwork was replaced with original bricks from the interior of the building. Insufficient funding meant the restoration work was unable to be completed to a stage to make the building usable and it continued to be used as a storeroom. In 1995, Cheyne’s Stables and Outbuilding was entered on the Register of the National Estate.
From 1999 the main house was used for commercial bed and breakfast accommodation, still owned by the Uniting Church, and Cheyne’s Stable and Outbuilding was essentially used for storage.
The English Oak tree described in the newspaper in 1963 was still standing at the time of writing in 2017.

Integrity/Authenticity

Integrity: High/Moderate
Authenticity: High/Moderate

Condition

Fair

Uses

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update

Disclaimer

This information is provided voluntarily as a public service. The information provided is made available in good faith and is derived from sources believed to be reliable and accurate. However, the information is provided solely on the basis that readers will be responsible for making their own assessment of the matters discussed herein and are advised to verify all relevant representations, statements and information.