87 original photographs, early Australian vineyard at "Gledswood" Estate NSW. Album.
Ca. 1900. Hardcover. An impressive Chisholm family album of the NSW historical landmark, with many lovely original silver gelatin photographs of Gledswood and its famous gardens and lush farmland, an important early site for the development of Australia's wine industry.
Gledswood homestead and gardens are listed on the Register of the National Estate, the State Heritage Register, and the State Heritage Inventory. It was here that James Chisholm Jr. planted a vineyard here in 1830, and in 1847 hired German experts in vine cultivation to join the vineyard. A large cellar under the property was built to hold 20,000 bottles of wine.
Gledswood (Narellan, on the outskirts of Sydney) is a farm estate founded by one of the early NSW colonial settlers, with close associations to the birthplace of the Australian wool industry in Camden. In 1810 Governor Macquarie granted 400 acres of land to Count Huon (Gabriel Louis Marie Huon de Kerilleau) who had been a tutor to the sons of John Macarthur.
Huon (a member of his family was Captain Huon de Kermadec who explored Tasmania when he sailed with the Bruni d'Entrecasteaux expedition to find the lost expedition of Jean-Francois de La Perouse) who had served in the New South Wales Corps, called the property Buckingham. In 1816 Huon sold the property to James Chisholm Sr, one of the founders of the Bank of NSW, who built the homestead and out buildings around 1830. Chisholm planted vineyards and ran cattle and sheep. The Chisholms owned Gledswood until 1914, when it changed hands, having a number of owners including Anthony Hordern.
The album has many charming family pictures, many young children including one named as Toby, family dogs and horses, a nanny with children, a young woman on horseback ("M. Chisholm on her favorite horse "Rajah") and an older woman, Lillian Chisholm. One especially warm family shot is titled, "Morning Tea at Gledswood" and shows the smiling family gathered under a flowering arcade on the verandah.
A prominent feature at Gledswood is its outstanding colonial garden, here shown in many shots, including a tree lined avenue, flower covered archways, the eastern gates, the grape trellis (two shots, including one of a woman seated in the shade under the enormous structure), the aster bed, the geranium walk, and the arbor. Pastoral photos include a group of Australian cattle, the canal, the lower dam (a painterly image of women in long white dresses near the tree lined river), "from the home paddock", and "in the paddock". Gledswood's garden was so admired that it featured in Horticultural Magazine (1870) and was an inspiration to Australian architect William Hardy Wilson. Gledswood's gardens and landscapes were important models for early NSW garden design.
The album also contains family photographs of another Chisholm family mansion, Inveran, (aka Delmar), a grand home in Ashfield which was built for the Chisholm family in 1884. The photographs pertaining to Gledswood and Inveran captioned in one period hand; the remainder of the album, with images of an ocean voyage on the SS "Ventura" to Pago Pago, Samoa, and a road trip to the Blue Mts, Katoomba, Leura, the garden of the royal palace Katoomba, the Fitzroy gardens in Melbourne, Abbotsford and the return voyage on the SS Nyreuna (Wyruma?), all captioned in a different hand. 8 additional family photographs loosely inserted, one of which is captioned on the verso "Camden & self at each end of cross cut saw".
Oblong album measures 9 x 6 1/2". Bound in green cloth covers, slightly rubbed with short splits to fabric at spine; the photographs in very good condition. There is a total of 87 photographs, ranging in size from 5 1/2 x 3 1/2" to 3 x 4 1/4".
A remarkable historically significant family record of one of the earliest wine producing homesteads in Australia, a vineyard still in operation, known as Gledswood Homestead & Winery. Very good condition. Item #23829
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