LYONS COTTAGE - DARWIN - NORTHERN TERRITORY

Lyons Cottage, as so known as British Australian Telegraph Company Residence, is one of the oldest remaining heritage buildings in the central business district in Darwin City in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

of Australia.

Early history

Also known as BAT House, Lyons Cottage was built by

Harold Edward George Snell Ormond Harold Edward George Snell (31 January 1892 - 16 April 1949), best known as Harold Snell, was a soldier, miner, primary producer, carpenter, builder and businessman in the Northern Territory of Australia. He built many historic buildings ...

in 1925 as accommodation for staff of the “Eastern Extension Australasia and China Telegraph Company,” better known as British Australia Telegraph, who operated the underwater cable connecting Australia to

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

. Its construction followed the completion of the

Overland Telegraph Line The Australian Overland Telegraph Line was a telegraphy system to send messages over long distances using cables and electric signals. It spanned between Darwin, in what is now the Northern Territory of Australia, and Adelaide, the capital o ...

in 1872 which linked Adelaide to Darwin and then onto London via an underwater cable to

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

. This ended Australia’s isolation from the outside world, and a letter that once physically took three months to travel from London to Sydney via ship, could be telegraphed in less than seven hours using the Overland Telegraph Line. A number of cable company managers, engineers and their families occupied the cottage.

Architecture

Located on The Esplanade overlooking

Darwin Harbour Darwin Harbour is the body of water close to Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. It opens to the north at a line from Charles Point in the west to Lee Point in the east into the Beagle Gulf and connects via the Clarence Strait wi ...

, the stone cottage is constructed of locally quarried porcelanite stone. It is the only remaining example of colonial bungalow architecture left in Darwin. It features shuttered windows and high ceilings, similar to the distinctive architectural style of British colonial dwellings in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

World War II and after

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

the house was occupied by the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

and later the

Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the principal naval force of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (CN) Vice Admiral Mark Hammond AM, RAN. CN is also jointly responsible to the Minister of ...

and survived the Japanese raids of 1942 and 1943 which destroyed much of Darwin. The cottage was then leased and later purchased by a lawyer named John Lyons and his family from which the cottage takes its name. Lyons became the Mayor of Darwin in 1959 and was subsequently elected to the

Northern Territory Legislative Council The Northern Territory Legislative Council was the partly elected governing body of the Northern Territory of Australia from 1947 until its replacement by the fully elected Northern Territory Legislative Assembly in 1974. Prior to 1947, there ha ...

where he remained until 1968. The cottage lost its roof during

Cyclone Tracy Cyclone Tracy was a tropical cyclone that devastated the city of Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, from 24 to 26 December 1974. The small, developing easterly storm had been observed passing clear of the city i ...

in 1974. The building was listed on the now-defunct Register of the National Estate on 26 March 1985 and on the

Northern Territory Heritage Register The Northern Territory Heritage Register is a heritage register, being a statutory list of places in the Northern Territory of Australia that are protected by the Northern Territory statute, the ''Heritage Act 2011''. The register is maintained b ...

on 4 August 1993. Lyons Cottage is now under management of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and operates as a cafe and shop run by Aboriginal Bush Traders.

References

External links

* {{coord, -12.46455, 130.83975, format=dms, type:landmark_region:AU, display=title Northern Territory Heritage Register Buildings and structures in Darwin, Northern Territory Houses completed in 1925 Northern Territory places listed on the defunct Register of the National Estate