By Cathy Jones
The land bounded by Ardittos Lane to the north, Elva Street to the east, Redmyre Road to the south and Homebush Road to the west was purchased by Robert Joshua King and Mary Ann Balmain, wife of surveyor and Strathfield Council Town Clerk John Hope Balmain, in 1903. Prior to this time, it was largely considered unusable due to the presence of a watercourse and creek (which is now a Sydney Water closed stormwater conduit). King and Balmain subdivided the two allotments into 66 feet wide blocks fronting Redmyre Road and The Avenue (later Churchill Avenue), a new street to link Elva Street and Homebush Road. The land was auctioned as the ‘King Estate’.
The land was gradually taken up with the last allotments sold in 1914. Many of the sales did not correspond with the original subdivisions, a number of purchasers preferring narrower frontages. A convenant was placed on most sales requiring ‘one main building only on the said land and such building shall be a double fronted…and be built of brick and/stone with roof of slates and/or tiles and shall not cost less than £300”.
21 to 67 Redmyre Road are built on the ‘King Estate’.
Parts Lots 49 and 50 were purchased from King and Balmain by Sarah Dodson, wife of builder John Dodson. Council records indicate the house was built in 1909. Dodson rented the house, which he named ‘Peculta’ for a period of two years, to Frank Snudden in 1910 and Herbert McCarthy in 1911, and then sold the house to Albert Simpson, a gentleman. Simpson renamed the house ‘Gunnamatta’. By 1917, the house was owned by Henry Brown, a civil servant. In 1926, the house was sold to Samuel Haywood, a retired landscape gardener. Following Haywood’s death,the house was sold in 1937 to Alfred and Emily Barnes. The Barnes family continued to own the house until 1973.
References
Department of the Valuer General NSW – Valuation List – Valuation District of Strathfield 1924, 1930 and 1960
Fox & Associates, Strathfield Heritage Study, 1986
Land Titles Register
Sands Directory for Sydney and Suburbs 1900-1932
Strathfield Council Valuation Lists 1894 to 1920
Strathfield Council Notices of Land Transfer (1927-1960s)
