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A NATIONAL TREASURE - Circa 1837

"Englefield"Circa 1837 ­ EAST MAITLANDSTOP PRESS: Confirmation of "Englefield" being added to the prestigious State Heritage Register is now official. This also confirms the Historical value of the home and the quality of the workmanship applied to restore this magnificent residence to it's former glory. It is also a testament to the colourful and important link this property has in the history of not just Maitland, but indeed Australia.In 1818 Governor Lachlan Macquarie granted 11 well behaved convicts land to work:John Smith transported first in 1810, escaped back to England then transported again in 1814 was one ­ his grant was at Wallis Plains.Smith was not only well behaved but obviously hard working and astute: he went on to build a flour mill and store, and with success grew to acquire a vessel for trade between Sydney and Morpeth/Maitland.On this same land in 1837 he also built the fine residence, now known as Englefield.Custodians of the last 22 years have enjoyed a lifestyle of the early gentry with the Georgian residence having 15 rooms, expertly restored and retaining stunning period features yet offering modern comforts of new timber kitchen with large gas cooker and modernised main bathroom. The home is elegant and inviting with extensive cedar throughout with magnificent panelled bedrooms, original kitchen still intact with wood fired bread oven and cooking utensils and maid¹s quarters above kitchen , flag floored scullery, 8 working fireplaces, large cellar under the dining room, elegant formal rooms, wide hallway and striking staircase, grounds are private and well established with many old trees and perfumed gardens that have featured in Australia's Open Garden Scheme. Being on 4 titles totalling over half an acre with garaging for 2 cars, a 6 x 12 mworkshop as well as ample off street parking, the property presents versatile options for use. Vendors have purchased in Sydney, and genuinely offer "Englefield" for sale.ENGLEFIELD Circa 1837DescriptionEnglefield is a two-storey five-bay Georgian house with slender Doric columns to both levels of the verandah and sandstone flagging at ground level. It has six pane double hung sashes without horns and an iron roof with jerkin head gables (in the style of an Irish farmhouse). It is built of sandstock bricks held together with primitive lime mortar showing shell remnants, reinforced with animal hair. Its original shingle roof survives under the present iron. The main structural walls are fourteen inches thick with internal paneled reveals. It has six-panelled cedar doors and cedar chimneypieces. There are seven bedrooms, including two attic rooms (in very original condition), and maid’s room over the old kitchen. On the first floor, at the street front, a single room runs the full width of the house, divided into two rooms and a hall by removable cedar floor-to-ceiling paneling incorporating a hinged door leaf. By virtue of it having a central ceiling rose, fireplaces at each end and a continuous boarded floor, the room architecturally reads as a single space, and may derive from the English model of a large first floor reception room that can be adapted for day-to-day use. (This feature is found in a number of Maitland residences all built around the same time: Wallis House, Roseneath , the Eckford house and outside Maitland most notably at Franklin House in Northern Tasmania.) It has a cellar, an early kitchen ( that appears to pre-date the house, c. 1826) with wood-fired bread oven ( and original hand made door), and back-to-back fireplaces with the adjoining flagged-floor scullery. Most of the lathe and plaster ceilings remain, with original hand run ceiling roses in both the first floor reception room and the downstairs drawing room, the latter also retaining its original hand-run cornice. The house has an unusual architectural feature in that that the front section of the house sits deliberately at an angle to the street front (less than 90o). This appears to be due to the pre-existence of the kitchen, which may (along with a previous attached timber building) have been built at 90o to a dirt road that had altered when the road was later formalized with stone gutters. A well at the rear of the building collapsed in 1997 (photos remain) and had to be in-filled for safety reasons. The property consists of four lots (Lots 21-24), the house being on Lot 23. On the other three, a colonial-style garden has been reconstructed on architectural garden remains (including three jacarandas of the 1940s and a more than 100 year old Mulberry), and with loose reference to a garden plan of the 1920/30s (drawn from memory by a member of the family who occupied the property at that time). Original sandstone guttering runs along the opposite side of the street.A fine residence that will impress, inspections by those who are seeking a heritage home of spacious proportions is highly recommended.

Real Estate Agent, PRD nationwide Huntervalley

Property ID 47879
Agent: Rhonda Nyquist 0419341999
Office: 0249342000
Address: Newcastle Rd East Maitland Hunter & Newcastle