Warrawee is a
suburb
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...
on the
Upper North Shore
The North Shore is a region within Northern Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia, generally referring to suburbs located on the northern side of Sydney Harbour up to Berowra, and suburbs between Middle Harbour and the Lane Cove River. The ...
of
Sydney
Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
in the state of
New South Wales
New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
, Australia. Warrawee is located 17 kilometres north-west of the
Sydney Central Business District
The Sydney central business district (CBD) is the historical and main Central business district, commercial centre of Sydney. The CBD is Sydney's city centre, or Sydney City, and the two terms are used interchangeably. Colloquially, the CBD or ...
, in the
local government area
A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a federated state, state, province, division (politica ...
of
Ku-ring-gai Council
Ku-ring-gai Council is a local government area in Northern Sydney ( Upper North Shore), in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The area is named after a fictional Aboriginal language group.
Major transport routes through the area include th ...
. Warrawee is predominantly a residential suburb with few commercial entities. Notably, its railway station supports no commercial activities, which is uncommon on the Sydney train network. The closest thing to commercial activity is
Knox Grammar School
Knox Grammar School is an independent Uniting Church day and boarding school for boys, located in Wahroonga, New South Wales, an Upper North Shore suburb of Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1924 by the Presbyterian Church of Australia as an all- ...
, which is no more than 200 metres from the station, although it is officially located in
Wahroonga
Wahroonga is a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, 18 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of Ku-ring-gai Council and Hornsby Shire. ...
, it is located predominantly in Warrawee, and sits on the boundary of the two suburbs
The suburb should not be confused with Wirrawee, the fictional small country town in the
Tomorrow series
The ''Tomorrow'' series is a series of seven young adult invasion novels written by Australian writer John Marsden, detailing the invasion and occupation of Australia by a foreign power. The novels are related from the first-person perspectiv ...
of books for young people by
John Marsden, or the film derived from the first book, ''
Tomorrow, When the War Began'' (2010).
History
The name Warrawee is believed to be an
Aboriginal word meaning ''rest a while'', ''stop here'' or ''to stand''.
The suburb has a notable architectural history, with a number of houses designed by prominent architects. The earliest significant homes were ''Pibrac'' (1888), ''Cheddington'' (1890) and ''Wirepe'' (1893).
In 1888, the public servant and patron of exploration, Frederick Eccleston Du Faur, built his house ''Pibrac'' in Pibrac Avenue. The house was designed by
John Horbury Hunt
John Horbury Hunt (1838 – 30 December 1904), often referred to as Horbury Hunt, was a Canadian-born Australian architect who worked in Sydney and rural New South Wales from 1863.
Life and career
Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, the son of ...
, a
Canadian
Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
architect who settled in Australia and favoured the
Arts and Crafts
The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...
style, as well as the North American
Shingle style
The shingle style is an American architectural style made popular by the rise of the New England school of architecture, which eschewed the highly ornamented patterns of the Eastlake style in Queen Anne architecture. In the shingle style, Engli ...
, which he introduced to Australia. Later alterations were carried out by B.J. Waterhouse. The house is built predominantly of timber, with extensive use of timber
shingles
Shingles, also known as herpes zoster or zona, is a viral disease characterized by a painful skin rash with blisters in a localized area. Typically the rash occurs in a single, wide mark either on the left or right side of the body or face. T ...
, on a
sandstone
Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...
base. It is considered a good example of Hunt's work and is listed on the
Register of the National Estate
The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. Phasing out began in 2003, when the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heri ...
.
''Cheddington'', the oldest home in established Hastings Road, is also attributed to Horbury Hunt, constructed in brick, with a slate roof and characteristic shingling. ''Wirepe'', designed by M.B. Halligan for architect Walter Traill, uses deep verandahs and high ceilings to elicit a homestead atmosphere, with fine corbelled chimneys and cedar shingles. The brickwork is laid in colonial bond, and the house sits at the heart of the Ku-ring-gai heritage precinct on Hastings Road.
''Upton Grey'' (now ''Kooyong'') was built in 1894 to a John Sulman design, and its English features are a local landmark. Across the century it has served as a government social services home, a
CSIRO
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency that is responsible for scientific research and its commercial and industrial applications.
CSIRO works with leading organisations arou ...
field station, and a boarding house for
Knox Grammar School
Knox Grammar School is an independent Uniting Church day and boarding school for boys, located in Wahroonga, New South Wales, an Upper North Shore suburb of Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1924 by the Presbyterian Church of Australia as an all- ...
. It is now in private hands and retains features replicated at Sulman's important ''Ingleholme''.
''Exley House'', in Finlay Road, Warrawee, was designed by
Harry Seidler
Harry Seidler (25 June 19239 March 2006) was an Austrian-born Australian architect who is considered to be one of the leading exponents of Modernism's methodology in Australia and the first architect to fully express the principles of the Bauh ...
in 1957 for Cecil Exley, an engineer with the Sydney Water Board, and his wife. The three-bedroom, two-bathroom home is the only red-brick single-storey dwelling Harry Seidler designed. It has recently been sympathetically extended.
As with all North Shore suburbs with Aboriginal names, Warrawee was the name of a railway station which was then attached to the surrounding suburb. Warrawee developed in the early 20th century as an exclusive residential district, with no shops, offices, post office, public school, churches or through roads.
[Paul Davis, November 2010, ''Kuring-Gai Potential Heritage Conservation Areas North Review']
"HCA 23 – Warrawee"
retrieved 16 April 2012. In 1923, Knox Grammar School was founded at Earlston, a Warrawee property across the railway line. All blocks were kept to between , and the form of houses was tightly controlled.
[ See especially p. 27.] Joseph Beresford Grant used his money to guarantee the exclusiveness of the development, and also ensured that there were no shops around the area.
Transport
The
Pacific Highway is the main arterial road.
Warrawee railway station is on the
North Shore railway line
The North Shore Line is a railway line serving the North Shore in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The North Shore Line extends from Sydney Central station through the western limb of the City Circle, across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and ...
on the
Sydney Trains
Sydney Trains is the brand name and operator of Railways in Sydney, suburban and intercity train services in and around Greater Sydney in New South Wales, Australia.
The metropolitan part of the network is a hybrid urban rail, urban-suburban r ...
network. The railway station built in 1900 was the last one built on the
North Shore Line before it was extended to
North Sydney
North Sydney is a suburb and commercial district on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. And is the administrative centre for the local government area of North Sydney Council.
History
The Indigenous people on the s ...
. Local residents had to fight the railway commissioners for a railway station, that is only one kilometre from Wahroonga.
At the , 3.7% of employed people travelled to work on public transport compared to 4.6% average for all of Australia, while 25.5% travelled by car (either as driver or as passenger) compared to 57.8% nationally.
CDC NSW
CDC NSW is a bus operator in New South Wales, Australia. It is an umbrella brand of ComfortDelGro Australia established in 2017 to cover the latter's New South Wales operations, some of which had been owned by ComfortDelGro since 2005. It was sub ...
operates one bus route through the suburb of Warrawee:
* 573: Turramurra to Sydney Adventist Hospital
Demographics
At the , the suburb of Warrawee recorded a population of 3,170 people.
Of these:
*Age distribution: The median age of Warrawee residents was 42 years. Children aged under 15 years made up 18.1% of the population and people aged 65 years and over made up 17.3% of the population.
*Ethnic diversity: More than half (57.7%) of residents were born in Australia, compared to the national average of 66.9%; the next most common countries of birth were China 10.3%, England 4.8%, India 3.3%, South Africa 3.0%, and South Korea 2.4%. The most common ancestries in Warrawee were English 34.0%, Australian 23.7%, Chinese 20.2%, Scottish 10.8%, and Irish 9.4%.
*Finances: The median weekly household income was $3,388, more than double the national median of $1,746. Real estate values were correspondingly high: the median monthly mortgage repayments were $3,500 compared to the national median of $1,863.
; Housing : The majority (84.3%) of private dwellings were family households, 14.7% were single person households and 1.0% were group households. Separate houses accounted for 63.9% of dwellings, while 30.6% were flats or apartments and about 4.7% were semi-detached.
Schools
Warrawee Public School is a
primary school
A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...
situated about 0.5 kilometres to the south of the station in Turramurra, on the
Pacific Highway. According to the school's website, it was established in 1906.
Knox Grammar School
Knox Grammar School is an independent Uniting Church day and boarding school for boys, located in Wahroonga, New South Wales, an Upper North Shore suburb of Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1924 by the Presbyterian Church of Australia as an all- ...
is predominately in the suburb of Warrawee, and sits no more than 200m from
Warrawee railway station. The school lists its address as
Wahroonga
Wahroonga is a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, 18 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of Ku-ring-gai Council and Hornsby Shire. ...
since the Administration Office is situated within that suburb.
Notable residents
* Joseph Beresford Grant (1877–1942), developer and investor in Warrawee as an exclusive residential area.
He lived from 1913 in Rowerdenan, Warrawee Avenue.
*
Eleanor Cullis-Hill
Eleanor Cullis–Hill (4 November 1913 – 8 September 2001) was an Australian architect. Running a solo practice from her home between 1946 and 1981, she designed dozens of buildings and renovations, mostly residential, on Sydney's North Shore ...
(1913–2001), architect and daughter of Joseph Beresford Grant
* Sir
Charles Mackellar
Sir Charles Kinnaird Mackellar (5 December 184414 July 1926) was an Australian politician and surgeon. He served in the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1885 to 1925, with the exception of a period of 50 days in 1903 when he filled a ...
and his daughter, poet
Dorothea Mackellar
Isobel Marion Dorothea Mackellar (1 July 1885 – 14 January 1968) was an Australian poet and fiction writer. Her poem " My Country" is widely known in Australia, especially its second stanza, which begins: "I love a sunburnt country / ...
*
Olive Fitzhardinge, resident 1917–1937, breeder of the rose 'Warrawee' especially, lived with Dr Fitzhardinge at Bridge End, 1 Warrawee Avenue.
*
Kandiah Kamalesvaran known as Kamahl, singer
*
Sir John Seymour Proud (1907–1997)
References
*http://www.eoas.info/biogs/P004777b.htm
External links
*
Creative Commons license">CC-By-SA
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and bui ...
]
{{Sydney Ku-ring-gai suburbs
Suburbs of Sydney
Ku-ring-gai Council
North Shore (Sydney)