Kurkulla is a heritage-listed residence and former boarding school at Evans Lane,

Bowral Bowral () is the largest town in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia, about ninety minutes southwest of Sydney. It is the main business and entertainment precinct of the Wingecarribee Shire and Highlands. Bowral once served ...

Wingecarribee Shire Wingecarribee Shire is the local government area of the Southern Highlands in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The Wingecarribee Shire is around southwest of the Sydney central business district and is part of regional Capital Country ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, Australia. It was built in the early 1880s. It was added to the

New South Wales State Heritage Register The New South Wales State Heritage Register, also known as NSW State Heritage Register, is a heritage list of places in the state of New South Wales, Australia, that are protected by New South Wales legislation, generally covered by the Heritag ...

on 2 April 1999.

History

Kurkulla was constructed in the early 1880s for widow Lucy Berthon, who operated a boarding and day school at

Marrickville Marrickville is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Marrickville is located south-west of the Sydney central business district and is the largest suburb in the Inner West Council local gove ...

. She reportedly intended to open a girls school in the Bowral house; however, this did not occur, and she instead moved to

Nowra Nowra is a city in the South Coast region of New South Wales, Australia. It is located south-southwest of the state capital of Sydney (about as the crow flies). As of the 2021 census, Nowra has an estimated population of 22,584. Situated in th ...

in 1891. Following Berthon's departure, English classical scholar J. Lee Pulling conducted a boarding school for boys at Kurkulla from 1891 until 1895 or 1897, with sources conflicting as to the date of its closure. Olympic swimmer and

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

casualty Cecil Healy was one of Pulling's pupils at Kurkulla. The property was regularly advertised for sale from 1903, and in 1909 it was purchased by Sydney merchant William Robert Evans, for his sister,

Ada Evans Ada Emily Evans (17 May 1872 – 27 December 1947), was an Australian lawyer and the first female law graduate in Australia. Early life Evans was born in Wanstead, England (then a town in Essex county, now a north-eastern suburb of London), ...

. Both were keen gardeners and transformed it into a self-supporting farm. Ada Evans was born in England on 17 May 1872 and consequently the gardens in the immediate vicinity of the dwelling house have a beautiful and distinctly European flavour. By 1902 Ada Evans had become Australia's first woman to graduate from the law school at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

, but after applying to the Full Court of the

Supreme Court of New South Wales The Supreme Court of New South Wales is the highest state court of the Australian State of New South Wales. It has unlimited jurisdiction within the state in civil matters, and hears the most serious criminal matters. Whilst the Supreme Court i ...

was refused admission to the Bar, as the law at that time disqualified woman from holding a position. After a determined legal battle, culminating in the Women's Legal Status Act of 1918 which was passed by the

Holman Holman may refer to: People * Holman (surname), including people with the name * Holman (given name), a list of people with the name Places United States * Holman, Missouri, a former town * Holman, Texas, a settlement * Holman, Washington, a s ...

state government, she became the first woman in New South Wales to qualify for admission to the Bar but then had to be a student of law for two years. Finally on the 12 May 1921 she became the first woman to be admitted to the Bar in New South Wales, opening up the legal profession here to females for the first time. The Australian Law Journal of 20 May 1948 described Evans' struggle to gain admittance to the Bar as "heroic pioneering for women in the profession". Evans lived in Kurkulla from 1909 until her death in 1947 and undoubtedly considered it her home. Evans Lane in which the property stands is named in her honour.Branch Managers Report 286/86 Following Evans' death, Kurkulla passed to her niece, Joan Kyngdon (1907-1997), who lived in the property until 1996. The property was restored prior to 2006 for then owners Dr. Louella and radiologist Tony Grattan-Smith by the architectural practice of Howard Tanner and Associates (now Tanner Kibble Denton), with a newly built self-contained studio adjacent to the homestead, an in-ground heated swimming pool and tennis court.Sydney Morning Herald Domain, 5–6 July 2014Meares & associates, 2013 The Grattan-Smiths sold it in 2006 to investment banker Peter Kennedy (for $4.375m). Kennedy sold it to neurologist Roger Tuck and his wife Leigh in 2011 for $4.25m, following the sale of their Gunning cattle farm Baroon in 2010. The Tucks put Kurkulla onto the real estate market in 2013 and 2014. It sold for $3,775,000 in November 2015.

Description

Homestead

Kurkulla is a single storey painted brick residence constructed of hand made (painted) bricks, iron roof,

veranda A veranda or verandah is a roofed, open-air gallery or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure. Although the form ''veran ...

h to two (the eastern and northern) sides, three paned

french doors A door is a hinged or otherwise movable barrier that allows ingress (entry) into and egress (exit) from an enclosure. The created opening in the wall is a ''doorway'' or ''portal''. A door's essential and primary purpose is to provide security by ...

.Heritage Council Branch Managers Report 286/86 Built c.1880s. It features polished timber floors, rooms of excellent proportion, and 12' pressed-metal Wunderlich ceilings.Advertisement, 2015 The house as a

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

fronted projecting bay on north elevation with an unusual

bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. Types Bay window is a generic term for all protruding window constructions, regardless of whether they are curved or angular, or r ...

in a segmented circle form. Timber framed verandah has stop chamfered

columns A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression membe ...

with neck mouldings. Verandah floor is tiled. The east elevation also features a projecting

porch A porch (from Old French ''porche'', from Latin ''porticus'' "colonnade", from ''porta'' "passage") is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance of a building. A porch is placed in front of the facade of a building it commands, and form ...

(timber framed) supported on masonry

piers Piers may refer to: * Pier, a raised structure over a body of water * Pier (architecture), an architectural support * Piers (name), a given name and surname (including lists of people with the name) * Piers baronets, two titles, in the baronetages ...

with a

pressed metal ceiling A tin ceiling is an architectural element, consisting of a ceiling finished with plates of tin with designs pressed into them, that was very popular in Victorian buildings in North America in the late 19th and early 20th century. They were als ...

(well overgrown with wisteria (

Wisteria sinensis ''Wisteria sinensis'', commonly known as the Chinese wisteria, is a species of flowering plant in the pea family, native to China, in the provinces of Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Shaanxi, and Yunnan. Growing tall, it is a deciduous v ...

). Later verandah enclosures include use of pressed metal for walls and ceilings. The house is well set back from the road on a site with many mature trees (Monterey pines, Pinus radiata etc.).

Setting and garden

The homestead is situated on 3 hectares opposite the Mt.GibraltarSMH, 5-6/7/14 on a rise close to Bowral township with long views to the north over paddocks and bush. It includes a pond and more informal areas of

woodland garden A woodland garden is a garden or section of a garden that includes large trees and is laid out so as to appear as more or less natural woodland, though it is often actually an artificial creation. Typically it includes plantings of flowering shrub ...

, and a copse of black locust/false acacia (

Robinia pseudoacacia ''Robinia pseudoacacia'', commonly known in its native territory as black locust, is a medium-sized hardwood deciduous tree, belonging to the tribe Robinieae of the legume family Fabaceae. It is endemic to a few small areas of the United States, ...

), a popular 19th-century farm shelter belt species). The property has dual entrances.W.M.Carpenter & Associates, advertisement, 6/2015 A gravel drive approaches the house, which is flanked by lawns and shrubberies and borders with old-fashioned perennials (e.g. flag iris,

Erigeron karvinskianus ''Erigeron karvinskianus'', the Mexican fleabane, is a species of daisy-like flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to Mexico and parts of Central America. Other common names include Latin American fleabane, Santa Barbara daisy, Spani ...

daisies), roses, smaller shrubs such as

Camellia japonica ''Camellia japonica'', known as common camellia, or Japanese camellia, is a species of flowering plant in the family Theaceae. There are thousands of cultivars of ''C. japonica'' in cultivation, with many colors and forms of flowers. In the U.S. ...

cv.s, hedges of various kinds) and sheltered by tall conifers - a row of Monterey pines (

Pinus radiata ''Pinus radiata'' ( syn. ''Pinus insignis''), the Monterey pine, insignis pine or radiata pine, is a species of pine native to the Central Coast of California and Mexico (Guadalupe Island and Cedros island). It is an evergreen conifer in the fa ...

) to the north, and a large Bunya Bunya pine (

Araucaria bidwillii ''Araucaria bidwillii'', commonly known as the bunya pine and sometimes referred to as the false monkey puzzle tree, is a large evergreen coniferous tree in the plant family Araucariaceae. It is found naturally in south-east Queensland Austral ...

) near the house. The garden is secluded.Meares, 2013 The grounds include a heated in-ground swimming pool and a tennis court, netted, with a separate guest pavilion overlooking it at one end and with a greenhouse.SMH, 5–6 July 2014 A sheltered, north-facing entertaining area is between the house and a guest studio and deck.Carpenter, 2015

Studio

A newly built self-contained studio is adjacent to the homestead.

Heritage listing

Kurkulla is considered to be an item of the State's environmental heritage due to its historical significance as the home of the late Ada Evans, the first woman to be admitted to the New South Wales Bar and famous for her pioneering work for females in the legal profession in New South Wales, and indeed Australia. Kurkulla is significant within the local community generally as evidence of the towns 19th century residential development and as a contributor to Bowral's important stock of early buildings and townscape features. The building and its setting also has aesthetic significance within the town as a representative example of a late 19th-century homestead - this significance being enhanced by the degree to which it has retained original fabric and features but compromised by later unsympathetic alterations, especially to the main elevations. Kurkulla was listed on the

on 2 April 1999.

References

Bibliography

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Attribution

{{NSW-SHR-CC, name=Kurkulla, dno=5045130, id=00503, year=2018, accessdate=1 June 2018 New South Wales State Heritage Register Bowral Houses in New South Wales Former boarding schools in New South Wales Articles incorporating text from the New South Wales State Heritage Register Houses completed in 1880