Shubra Hall is a heritage-listed former semi-rural suburban estate and mansion residence and now administration building for school purposes at Boundary Street in the Sydney suburb of Croydon, Municipality of Burwood, New South Wales, Australia.

[1] Thirteen acres and two roods of land were consolidated under a single Certificate of Title[2] on 4 August 1868 in the name of Anthony Horden III, draper, in the City of Sydney.

He moved out of his cottage near his father's home at Darling Point and lived initially in the stables at Croydon 'in order to supervise the work more closely'[3] including the fencing of 10 hectares (25 acres) of land.

He designed the Anthony Hordern and Sons department store building in the Haymarket and their New Palace Emporium on Brickfield Hill, as well as Sam's home at Bowral.

[5] H. G. Woffenden discussed the design in his PhD on nineteenth century architecture in NSW:[1] 'Two ornate Sydney suburban villas may be regarded as heralds of the Boom Style that reached a climax in the mid-eighties.

The larger (Shubra Park) built for Anthony Hordern at Croydon, reflected the influence of second empire style, popular at the time in Sydney public buildings .

Although the tower with its steep, fish-scale patterned roof was nominally second-empire, the lavish decoration applied to the entire exterior as s a three dimensional non-structural layer was a mixture of crude Romanesque and Byzantine.

Plaster ornaments, chamfers, blind arcading, polygonal columns and strange capitals in the entrance, as well as balconies and verandahs bedecked with cast-iron-admittedly limited in extent-these made an exotic display.

The house appears to have been completed by September 1869 when the birth of a son to Mrs. Anthony Hordern III "at her residence, Shubra Park, Ashfield" was announced in The Sydney Morning Herald.

A short time before, Hordern had put his signature on a counter petition opposing the formation of Burwood Municipal Council, identifying himself as a resident of the district.

Tertius appears to have remained in occupation of Shubra Hall until September when he advertised the auction sale of "the whole of his very elegant and recherche household furniture and effects ... in consequence of his projected departure for England".

The Mutual Provident Land Investing and Building Society (Limited) sold Shubra Hall and grounds (comprising four acres and three roods) in December 1882 to John Coghlan of Pitt Street, Sydney, Diamond Drill owner, for a sum of £6,489.

[1] The auction sale of Shubra Hall was advertised on 3 September 1889, and it sold to John Hay Goodlet, Alexander Dean and James Balfour Elphinstone, guarantors of the Presbyterian Church in New South Wales, for the reported sum of £7,500.

The General Assembly appointed Dr John Marden principal of the College and he and his family took up temporary residence there while seeking a permanent site for the school.

The main college building, comprising Boarding House, Dining Room and College Hall, "adjoins the residence of the principal, Dr John Marden" (Shubra Hall) and stands "in the midst of a spacious block of ground, six acres in extent, which is being laid out in lawn tennis courts, gardens, etc, in an elevated position, it forms, with its tower 26 metres (84 ft) high, a very conspicuous feature in the landscape".

[7][1] The Australian Dictionary of Biography entry on "John Marden" mentions that he trained as a lawyer but was "keenly interested in horticulture" and "laid out beautiful gardens and playing fields" for the Croydon campus.

Photographs from 1905 show changes in the growth patterns of the gardens; the pines are noticeably taller, new fruit trees have replaced the grape vines and palms are flourishing near the science wing (now the archive).

'As Dr E. Neil McQueen, the Vice-Principal who succeeded him.as Principal at Croydon, was already established in the "Red House", (now the site of the primary school), "Shubra Hall" was used for reception rooms, study and offices and for the Kindergarten under Miss Froggatt, upstairs.

It was also the home of Mrs. Wallace, Mrs Marden's sister, who was the centre of the College's musical life from its Ashfield days, the moving spirit of its Student Christian Union and long-time editor of the school magazine.

The experiment was not successful and he turned his attention to other sites in the vicinity of Sydney, drilling bores at Port Hacking, Holt-Sutherland, Moorebank, Heathcote, and Moore Park and Rose Bay.

[1] Shubra Hall is situated within the grounds of Presbyterian Ladies' College (PLC Croydon), which is located on the border and thus within both of the Ashfield and Burwood municipal local government areas, in the inner western suburbs, approximately 11 km from the city centre of Sydney.

[1] The general form of Shubra Hall consists of the original two storey residential building facing east, which features well-detailed, high-ceilinged rooms designed for living and entertaining.

[1] The interiors are decorated with fine joinery, likely cedar, in the grandly scaled skirtings, doors, windows and the main staircase that has helix-shaped balustrade and newel posts that reference the columns under the entry arch.

The marble mantelpieces are commonly white, with a dark grey in the dining room, typical of those constructed in Australia using imported stone, coloured tiles and cast iron grates.

[1] As at 10 September 2014, Shubra Hall is of state aesthetic significance as a grand and largely intact example of the Victorian Second Empire style applied to a domestic residence.

Shubra Hall also has state significance for its association with the life of Anthony (Tertius) Hordern III, a leading retailer in New South Wales in the mid Victorian period.

Shubra Hall has state significance for its association with the life of Anthony (Tertius) Hordern III, a leading retailer in New South Wales in the mid Victorian period.

Shubra Hall is of state aesthetic significance as a grand and largely intact example of the Victorian Second Empire style applied to a domestic residence.

Shubra Hall may have research potential to provide information useful to a study of the Hordern Family, the architecture of Albert Bond, mid-Victorian construction techniques, and the domestic and working life on a large estate.

It demonstrates the popularity of land along the Redfern-Parramatta Railway for residential development by the wealthy, relieved to be away from the poor conditions then found in the harbour port and city area.