30 May 2025

An extraordinary thing, and a very great loss, and @ausnian_ recently alerted me to these excellent photos from 1939 from Pix magazine via @statelibrarynsw; here’s what I said in 2019:

Norwood, Brighton, 1891-2, demolished 1955 – definitely the most weird and wonderful mansion of the #LandBoom era. The exterior was a mashup of Queen Anne and Tudor, but inside! The hall was very much in the baronial style, complete with bronzed knights and a tiled fireplace, the drawing room low Romanesque arches, fireplace ‘nook’, and elaborate marquetry floor and coffered ceiling, the dining room with coved timber driving and giant wrought something chandelier ! The conservatory was fully tiled, there were lots of #stainedglasswindows (eight of the main Shakespeare set now at Trinity College), and a curious marble Roman bath, off a windowless bedroom downstairs. And a ballroom that you could only bet up from a terrace or a bedroom – either it was added during construction or the plan is guesswork.

Designed by local architect #PhillipTreeby, it was built for financier Mark Moss c (2nd lady pic), who went bust along with most financiers in the Crash, and lost the house in 1894. Treeby didn’t do much else notable, except a more Queen Anne style big house in Hampton Street Brighton.

Eventually in 1955 a developer bought the still large property, when there was an open day / auction of the contents, when #RobinBoyd described it as ‘frightful’ and ‘so terrible that it is good’, and ‘a mixture of a dozen styles’, but also ‘a fairy tale castle’, and huge numbers lined up to see it for the first and last time. It was demolished and the site was subdivided and Norwood Ave put through the middle. There’s a self-published 2013 book by Roland Johnson, great nephew of the last owner, Edmond Riches, which includes a bunch of colour family photos. That’s probably Edmund in the third pic, who never married and never installed electricity.

28 March 2021

Photos from the book. Last 3 images are the gatehouse, which was very much in the style of what would later be called Edwardian, moved ‘brick by brick’ from the esplanade to the corner of Norwood and Ramsay Streets, just behind where the house was.

2nd image @library_vic from the 1955 auction/open day.

The interiors were much more elaborate than the exterior : the hall was very much in the very baronial style, complete with carved or bronze knights (main image is a photoshopped amalgam of more than one image). The conservatory was fully tiled, there were lots of #stainedglasswindows (some now at Trinity College), and a curious marble Roman bath, off a windowless bedroom downstairs. It must have been very dark, most of the main rooms have only or mainly stained glass windows, often in nooks.

• Uncategorized