Bytes: SYDNEY SUBURBS

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DENISTONE

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Location:

Denistone is a suburb in Northern Sydney, located 16 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Ryde.

Denistone West and Denistone East are separate suburbs.

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Name origin:

Denistone is derived from the name of a home built in the area called Dennistone.

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About:

Gregory Blaxland, a free settler, purchased the 182 hectare (450-acre) Brush Farm estate in 1806, shortly after his arrival in the colony.

Gregory Blaxland, 1813

Gregory Blaxland (1778 – 1853) was an English pioneer farmer and explorer in Australia, noted especially for initiating and co-leading the first successful crossing of the Blue Mountains by European settlers. By sticking to the ridges instead of the valleys, which had thwarted previous attempts to cross, he, Wentworth and Lawson opened the grazing and farming land to the west of the Blue Mountains. Blaxland is also noted as one of the first settlers to plant grapes for wine-making purposes. He was engaged during the next few years in wine-making. He had brought vines from the Cape of Good Hope and found a species resistant to blight. He suffered great personal loss with the early and untimely deaths of his second son, youngest son and wife along with others quite close to him in rapid succession, which bore very heavily on his heart. He committed suicide on 1 January 1853. The town of Blaxland in the Blue Mountains is named after him, as is the Australian Electoral Division of Blaxland.

Eastwood Brush Farm House built by Blaxland

In 1829 Blaxland transferred Brush Farm Estate to his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, and her husband Dr Thomas Forster.

Forster expanded the estate by purchasing the Porteous Mount grants of 48 hectares (120 acres) on the Denistone ridge in 1830. Denistone was named after Forster's home "Dennistone", burnt down by bushfires in 1855.

Richard Rouse Terry acquired the land from the Blaxlands in 1872 where he rebuilt Denistone House, now within the grounds of Ryde Hospital.

The Denistone estate, centred on Denistone House, was a late subdivision, not opened up for sale until 1913.

Another historic house in Denistone is The Hermitage which was built by Gregory Blaxland's son, John Blaxland in about 1842.

John Blaxland, c1860

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Gallery:

The Hermitage, Denistone, Sydney

A walkway leading into Darvall Park, a forest reserve near the railway line at Denistone. Despite over thirty years of bush regeneration, large areas of Darvall Park are heavily infested with weeds.

Denistone Railway Station

Denistone House - view from front gates of the Convalescent Hospital for Men, August 1914. It was built by Richard Rouse Terry in 1872 and is now part of Ryde Hospital.

In 2020 the 142-year-old Denistone House at Ryde Hospital began undergoing its first major restoration project. The restoration includes replacing deteriorated sandstone blocks, rectifying damaged sandstone blocks and improving ventilation to prevent further damage to the sandstone. Before joining the Ryde Hospital campus in 1934 Denistone House was a privately-owned mansion surrounded by pastures and orchards.

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DENISTONE EAST

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Location:

Denistone East is a suburb in Northern Sydney, 16 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Ryde.

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About:

Denistone East is a residential suburb between Denistone and North Ryde, with many houses built post-war under Ryde Council's loan scheme.

It was gazetted as a separate suburb in 1999.

Denistone East does not have its own retail area. The closest shopping precinct is Midway Shopping Centre, which lies just outside Denistone East's northeast boundary in the suburb of Ryde.

The "Midway" strip of shops at the intersection of Cecil Street, Lovell Road, Quarry Road and North Road in Denistone East.

Larger regional shopping centres such as Macquarie Centre and Top Ryde City are located nearby.

While the property The Hermitage is technically in the suburb of Denistone, the surrounding estate is now Denistone East.

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DENISTONE WEST

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Location:

Denistone West is located 16 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Ryde.

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About:

Denistone West occupies most of the divide between the Parramatta and Lane Cove rivers.

The city is bisected from west to east by one of Sydney's busiest roads, Victoria Road. It is crossed north-south by another main road, Lane Cove Road and is skirted on the north-west by the M2 Motorway and Epping Road.

The suburb of Denistone West, created in 1999, was originally part of the suburb of Denistone. The bulk of the suburb of Denistone West is Project no 4 of a post-World War II housing scheme called the Ryde Council Housing Scheme. It was one of the most innovative postwar housing schemes.

The housing shortage which existed before the war began worsened during the war because of building restrictions. At the end of the war, as ex-servicemen and women were demobilised, marriage rates increased and so did the need for houses. With federal funding the New South Wales Housing Commission also embarked on a large scale program of welfare housing. However, Ryde Council wanted more than welfare housing. The scheme devised offered would-be home owners the option of buying houses with small deposits at a low rate of interest with repayments over a long period. The scheme was distinguished also by its employment of a panel of 10 architects and town planners who were then at the leading edge in their field.

The scheme provided for the erection by Council of 2,500 homes over a five-year period. Each subdivision boasted bitumen-surfaced roads, kerbing and channelling, footpath paving, street beautification and general drainage. Subdivisions were planned with attention to the natural contours of the land, and roads were designed to reduce traffic speeds and provide a maximum of safety to residents within the area. The planning of the subdivision was linked with the planning of each house in its own garden setting.

In the end, between 1945 and 1952, a total of 599 houses were built by Council and a further 360 were built under a Ryde Loan scheme.

Project no 4, the biggest project in the scheme, consisted of 173 brick houses in Denistone West.

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Gallery: