Cumberland Hall
View of the town of East Maitland, Picturesque Atlas of Australasia, 1886
From left to right: Cumberland Hall (circled), Wormley House, Glenellen, Morpeth Road and branch railway.
Speen View Cottage in foreground, gaol wall on horizon, and old St Stephen’s Presbyterian Church beyond the Great Northern Railway Line.
One of the most prominent landmarks in East Maitland used to be Cumberland Hall, a magnificent home of great architectural merit with its own domestic staff, outbuildings and spacious grounds extending, eventually, to nearly 11 acres. It stood for exactly 100 years on the hill now occupied by Maitland Grossmann High School and was visible from a great distance.
Sadly the house was demolished in 1960-61, symptomatic of the post-war urge to tear down existing buildings, even fine ones, and to replace them with ugly modern structures. Today, the only hint of its existence is in the name of Cumberland Street.
The main house, of brick and stone, was of two storeys, with slate roof, 13 rooms, and cellars beneath. The fireplaces had marble mantelpieces, with a different colour marble in each room. Behind was a detached, two-storey servants’ quarters and kitchen, walled courtyards, and a range of outbuildings.
There was a beautiful formal garden in front, sloping away towards Morpeth Road. There were gravel paths, an oval driveway around a fountain, formal garden beds, urns, and statues. At one corner of the grounds parallel with and abutting what is now Cumberland Street was a two-storey brick structure with slate roof and weathervane containing a six-stall stable, harness room and coach house, with a hay loft overhead; with a single-storey wing projecting at right angles containing ‘loose boxes’.
Building a grand house
Cumberland Hall was built by grazier and speculator Enoch Cobcroft who had spent many years managing his family’s squatting runs in the Moree and Tamworth districts. In 1857 Cobcroft commenced building his three-storey ‘Northern Stores’ of brick and stone on the corner of Melbourne and Lawes Streets, East Maitland, which stands to this day. Regarded as ostentatious and exceeding any commercial need, it was however appreciated as an ornament to the town.
To match the scale of his store, Cobcroft built a grand house as well – one that would speak of his wealth and his longed-for social station. In August 1858 Cobcroft called for tenders for the masonry work of a two-storey dwelling house, to be erected at East Maitland. On 1 January 1859 the Northern Times observed that a large house was in course of erection by Enoch Cobcroft on the gaol hill in East Maitland. In front of the intended mansion there was already ‘a magnificent garden which, for extent, situation, culture, and appearance, is superior to any we have seen in the district.’
On 21 April 1859 the Maitland Mercury noticed the erection of Mr E. Cobcroft’s new house at East Maitland, ‘on an admirable site commanding an extensive view over the rich flats beyond the Morpeth Road, which when completed will probably be the finest private residence in the three towns or their vicinity.’ The foundations had been laid, and much of the stone had been cut.
Cumberland Hall, about 1900
(By kind permission of the late Mrs Shirley Brown, ‘Glenthorne’, Allyn River)
click on above images for larger views
In January 1860 the Mercury noticed that Cobcroft’s mansion on the hill beyond the gaol was proceeding rapidly, and was being built in the same handsome and substantial manner as the store which had just been finished in Melbourne Street. Finally, at the end of 1861 (about three years after it was started) its completion was signalled by a flurry of advertisements by Enoch Cobcroft and his wife, who gave her address as ‘Cumberland House, East Maitland’, seeking ‘a laundress, an experienced gardener, a female general servant, a female cook and a respectable nurse girl’. By 1868 Mrs Cobcroft called it Cumberland Hall.
Who was the architect?
Careful research has not so far yielded the identity of the architect of Cumberland Hall, but there is a strong case in favour of Mortimer W. Lewis junior (1820-99), an architect formerly resident in East Maitland, who had re-located to Newcastle in 1853.
Two measured drawings of Cumberland Hall have been discovered in the NSW State Archives, but neither is the original plan. The first, by an unknown draftsman and enclosed in a letter dated 26 August 1870, comprises a ground plan of the main house, the kitchen and servants’ quarters, and the stables and coach house. It was drawn as part of an unsuccessful bid by Cobcroft to lease the property to the colonial government for use as a lunatic asylum. The second, dated 28 June 1943, drawn by the Government Architect’s Branch, comprises a ground plan of the main house, kitchen and servants’ quarters and outbuildings (but not of the stables and coach house, which had already been demolished). It was part of a survey conducted to ascertain the extent of necessary repairs after the property had been relinquished as an annex of Maitland Boys’ High School. Complementing these drawings is a description of the rooms published in 1929 when the executors of the estate of the late Hon Alexander Brown MLC attempted to sell the property by public auction.
Detail from a photo looking westwards towards Cumberland Hall from half a mile away, 1924
Taken by Wal Pryke on 19 October 1924.
(by kind permission of Wal Pryke’s daughter, Mrs Lesley Bird, Taree)
Note the large brick stables and coach house abutting Melbourne (now Cumberland) Street.
The hypothesis favouring Lewis as the architect of Cumberland Hall is based on its relationship with two other buildings in East Maitland from the same period. The first is Cobcroft’s Northern Stores, linked to Cumberland Hall by architectural similarities so striking that the two buildings can only have been the work of the same architect; and by reason of forming a connected, grand enterprise by the same owner who would likely have engaged the same architect for both. The second is the old Bank of Australasia, linked to the Northern Stores by architectural similarities. While there are also similarities between Cumberland Hall and the bank, the critical link is the Northern Stores.
Similarities between Cumberland Hall and Northern Stores
• stone quoins, and finely-moulded stone architraves• classical details and massive proportions• stone courses under the eaves, an unusual feature• identical materials (Flemish Bond brickwork, stone details, slate roof) • roof design • brick-walled rear yard enclosing detached outbuildings • arched windows, blank window recesses, splayed window and door reveals But the Northern Stores had another set of similarities, every bit as striking, with the old Bank of Australasia at the corner of Melbourne Street and Newcastle Road. The old Bank of Australasia is significant because its architect is known to have been Mortimer W. Lewis junior. In other words, the designs of these two commercial buildings in Melbourne Street exhibit strong evidence of a common hand. As Lewis designed the bank, it is therefore likely that he designed the Northern Stores as well, both of which were erected at more or less the same time. If Lewis designed the Northern Stores, then he must have designed Cumberland Hall.
Similarities between the Northern Stores and the old Bank of Australasia:
• decorative timber brackets of similar style, in pairs, under the eaves• classical details and massive proportions• stone courses under eaves• identical materials (Flemish Bond brickwork, stone details, slate roof)• roof design, and even the position of the chimneys• brick-walled rear yard enclosing detached outbuildings in similar positions and style• arched windows, blank window recesses, splayed window reveals, cedar breast panels under the sills• internal staircase at rear
Comparison between Cumberland Hall, Northern Stores and the Bank of Australasia
click on above images for larger views
Comparison between the Northern Stores and the Bank of Australasia
click on above images for larger views
Similarities between Cumberland Hall and the old Bank of Australasia:
• classical details and proportions• stone courses under eaves• identical materials (Flemish Bond brickwork, stone details, slate roof)• roof design• brick-walled rear yard enclosing detached outbuilding• included arched windows, blank window recesses, splayed door/window reveals• decorative curvature of stone coping where the brickwork of the courtyard walls terminated in gate pillars.Cobcroft was involved in the erection of all three of these buildings. As a prominent citizen of East Maitland where Lewis was already well-known, he would have been personally acquainted with Lewis at the relevant time. Cobcroft had the Northern Stores built in 1857-59 and Cumberland Hall in 1858-61. While the bank was commenced in 1856, Cobcroft project-managed its completion in 1858 and, in that capacity, would have had personal dealings with its architect.
Mortimer W. Lewis junior had been the clerk of works supervising the construction of East Maitland Gaol in the 1840s, designed by his more famous father and namesake Mortimer W. Lewis senior (1796-1879), who was the Colonial Architect of New South Wales. The two have sometimes been confused with each other. Even following the completion of the gaol the younger Lewis continued to be employed by the Colonial Architect’s Department as a kind of local representative, and there was ‘scarcely a government building from Newcastle to Tamworth in which he had not had a hand’. As a civil servant the younger Lewis designed public buildings, bridges, wharves, etc. but he also enjoyed a right of private practice.
Cumberland Hall, 31 March 1924
Photographed by Wal Pryke
(by kind permission of Wal Pryke’s daughter, Mrs Jeanette Massey, Tenambit)
Front garden, Cumberland Hall, 31 March 1924
Photographed by Wal Pryke
(by kind permission of Wal Pryke’s daughter, Mrs Jeanette Massey, Tenambit)
References
Colonial Architect to Under Secretary for Public Works, letter of 18 November 1870 reporting on properties offered for use as lunatic asylums, including letter of 26 August 1870 from Enoch Cobcroft offering Cumberland House, East Maitland, and enclosing a plan thereof, State Records NSW: NRS-905-250-[1/2365]-77/1961.
Maitland Mercury, 24 August 1858, p.2 (‘The Bank of Australasia’); 8 December 1868, p.1 (advertisement); 9 November 1893, p.4 (‘Farewell Banquet to Mr. Mortimer W. Lewis’); 10 January 1899, p.3 (‘Death of Mr. M.W. Lewis’); and 15 November 1929, p.10 (advertisement).
Report on condition of Cumberland Hall by Department of Public Works, Newcastle, 28 June 1943, State Records NSW: CGS 3829, [14/664], MGHS.
Waddell, James, Remembering Cumberland Hall: the rise and demise of a great house at East Maitland, James Waddell, Melbourne, 2004.