Hereford House
Hereford House is a heritage-listed historic site located in Hereford Street in the inner western Sydney suburb of Glebe in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1870 to 1879. The property was owned by the NSW College of Nursing until it was sold to a private owner in 2001. The house was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. History History of Glebe Glebe is now much altered from the environment which was home to Aboriginal people of the Guringai tribe for thousands of years and which Europeans first saw soon after the settlement was established at Sydney Cove in 1788. Blackwattle Creek and Blackwattle Bay were discovered and named in 1789. Almost half of the Aboriginal population was killed by disease within the first few years of white occupation and survivors, with their traditional life shattered and increasing pressure put on their resources, retreated away from the principal settlement. It is likely that the relatively untouched area of Glebe provided some shelter but there are no known Aboriginal sites on or near the study area. The area is based on a geology of sandstone with Wianamatta shale caps. The shallow sandy soil supported, on the ridge tops, robust forests of tall eucalypts and angophoras. Below was a shrubby under-storey that included acacias and banksias. The study area would have supported an environment of this type. Further down the ridges were black wattles, tea-trees and swamp oaks and these gave way at the marshy and muddy intertidal zone to mangroves. Blackwattle Bay extended in a rivulet to Parramatta Road, Wentworth Park occupies the reclaimed headwaters of this bay. Governor Phillip made the observation that this land was: The land was not suited to farming because of its topography and soils and the first European associated with it, the Reverend Richard Johnson, famously described his land as "four hundred acres not worth four pence". Despite its limited use for agricultural purposes the timber was a valuable raw material and by the 1820s at least a substantial portion of the land in the vicinity of the study area had been cleared and fenced ready for sale. In 1790 Governor Phillip reserved approximately of land to the south and west of Blackwattle Creek as a Glebe devoted to supporting the Anglican Church. Reverend Johnson set about clearing it. He had few convicts to do so and considered the land poorly suited to agricultural purposes. In 1974 he exchanged his rights to this land for a separate grant. The Glebe land appears to have remained relatively untouched from this time until the 1820s. In 1826 a Corporation was formed to administer all the lands reserved for clerical and educational use and income. This was the Clergy and School Lands Corporation. The Glebe land came under their authorisation as part of a Crown Grant made to the Corporation. The latter, being in a parlous financial situation, made the decision