[1] pre-1780s - local Aboriginal people in the area used the site for fishing and cultural activities - rock engravings, grinding grooves and middens remain in evidence.
[4] By the mid nineteenth century the traditional owners of this land had typically either moved inland in search of food and shelter, or had died as the result of European disease or confrontation with British colonisers.
[3][1] One of the earliest land grants in this area was made in 1824 to Captain Francis Marsh, who received 12 acres bounded by the present Botany and High Streets, Alison and Belmore Roads.
The village was isolated from Sydney by swamps and sandhills, and although a horse-bus was operated by a man named Grice from the late 1850s, the journey was more a test of nerves than a pleasure jaunt.
The wealthy lived elegantly in large houses built when Pearce promoted Randwick and Coogee as a fashionable area.
But the market gardens, orchards and piggeries that continued alongside the large estates were the lot of the working class.
An even poorer group were the immigrants who existed on the periphery of Randwick in a place called Irishtown, in the area now known as The Spot, around the junction of St.Paul's Street and Perouse Road.
Many European migrants have made their homes in the area, along with students and workers at the nearby University of NSW and the Prince of Wales Hospital.
[1][5]: 218–9 The existing property Cliffbrook presently stands on part of an original estate named "Cliff-Brook" which comprised three parcels of crown land granted between 1845 - 1846 to Lewis Gordon, a State Government Surveyor.
[1] In 1905 Sir Denison Miller, then assistant to the general Manager of the Bank of New South Wales, was asked to occupy the mansion, rent free.
The present Cliffbrook mansion was built in 1921, according to the Randwick Historical Society's documentation, designed by architect John Kirkpatrick in the Federation Free Classical style.
Although Thomas Rowe won the competition for the Sydney Hospital Buildings on Macquarie Street, Kirkpatrick was commissioned by the government to finish the project.
Uncorroborated oral evidence provided in an inquiry to the Australian Heritage Commission suggested a strong friendship between Sir Denison Miller and Kirkpatrick, perhaps connected with Mlller's Governorship of the Commonwealth Bank from 1911 and Kirkpatrick's commission for the Pitt Street Bank Building completed in 1914.
McCallum is not able to connect Cliffbrook with the firm but did note that E. A. Scott designed many houses in Lang Road, Centennial Park, often recognised because of his use of "plum-coloured" bricks.
[1] After 1945, "Gordon Court" and part of the estate was auctioned and sold to Friedrich Schiller, a Hungarian, electrician who lived in, the mansion with his sister.
Successive attempts to repoint eroding mortar in a hard cement rich mix have detracted from its appearance and contributed little to its structural condition.
[1] The northern boundary wall's stonework is also irregularly coursed but individual stones are more precisely squared and generally larger in size.
[1] The date of the western boundary wall is not indicated clearly by documentary evidence available at present, although its construction, and particularly the mortar type is consistent with the technology of the original Cliffbrook mansion built in the 1860s.
Following this tradition garages of this period were usually designed as secondary utilitarian structures which did not attempt to compete with the architecture of the primary residential building on the site.
The clues to this "time band" for its construction can be seen in the detailing of the northern windows and architraves and the underlying layer of kalsomine paint on the internal faces of the sandstone walls.
It has been modified many times in an ad hoc manner:[1] The petrol pump standing by the south east corner is of early vintage but apparently is now non-functional.
Its overall form and stylistic elements employed in the external design have antecedents in the Victorian Italianate style, although the liver brick work, the simple stone detailing, the terrazo floors and interior joinery are distinctly of the 1920s.
[1] The interiors are relatively plain, having moulded plaster ceilings of Regency style with deep coved cornices only to the main living and reception rooms.
The original door and window joinery is largely intact - these elements, like the deep timber skirting which survives in most rooms were dark stained maple.
It is well proportioned, has an impressive scale and appearance befitting Sir Denison Miller's prestige and position in public life.
The building displays high standards of craftsmanship in the brickwork and joinery particularly, as excellent examples of the techniques employed and use of the materials in the 1920s.
[1] The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.
It is well proportioned, has an impressive scale and appearance befitting Sir Denison Miller's prestige and position in public life.
The building displays high standards of craftsmanship in the brickwork and joinery particularly, as excellent examples of the techniques employed and use of the materials in the 1920s.
[1] Despite its conservative architectural style, the building contains examples of contemporary construction techniques and use of materials in the use of reinforced concrete structures, the use of terrazzo floor finishes and the use of dark "liver" bricks.