Vaucluse Manor is a historic neo-Gothic property in the suburb of Sydney suburb of Vaucluse. Interestingly, in this case it was not the house that got its name from the the name of the neighbourhood, but the other way around - the neighbourhood became so named after the manor house.
The manor house "Vokluz", built in the 19th century, consists of the house itself, kitchen wing, stables and auxiliary outbuildings. Around the around the buildings on 9 hectares is an English garden. Today the manor house is a museum, open to the public.
The manor itself was built by Sir Henry Brown Hayes, who in 1802 was exiled to the colony of New South Wales for kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy Irish banker. The governor of the colony considered Hayes a "nuisance" and and wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible. So in 1803, the exile was allowed to purchase land and a house 3 kilometres outside Sydney. An avid admirer of the 14th-century poet Francesco Petrarch, Hayes named his property after his Fountain of Vaucluse, a famous spring near the town of Lille-sur-la-Sorgue, which is today is in the Vaucluse department of France.
Hayes built a small but quite handsome cottage and a few outbuildings. The 20 hectares of land were planted with several thousand of fruit trees, none of which, sadly, survive to this day. Newspapers described the estate as "a small but lovely farm". There are credible evidence that Hayes surrounded his property with peat imported from Ireland to protect against snakes. In 1812, Hayes received a pardon from Governor McWire and sailed to Ireland, where he lived the remaining 20 years of his of his life.
The Vaucluse estate changed hands for several years until in 1827 it was purchased by William Charles Wentworth, explorer, journalist, lawyer, politician and successful businessman. He expanded the property to 208 acres and moved in with his wife Sarah and children in 1828. Over the Over the next 25 years they carried out various repairs and renovations to the house and grounds. From one of their trips to England, the Wentworths brought back many pieces of art and furniture, which can still be seen in the house museum. William Wentworth himself was buried in a chapel not far from the the house where he spent so many years of his life.
In 1911, the New South Wales state government purchased 9 hectares of land along with the house and an English garden, to turn the estate into a holiday park, but it was not until nearly a decade later that the Vaucluse Estate was opened to the public. Several several times the estate was to be renamed - it was suggested that it be called Constitution House, "Wentworth House and even Wisteria House. In the early 1980s, the estate was undergoing was undergoing serious restoration work to recreate the original interiors. Today, Vaucluse Manor is one of the few 19th-century buildings, is now listed as a National Heritage Site in the state of New South Wales.
