Category: Crag Archives

Castlecrag is one of four communities selected for an exploration of ‘Life in the Australian city’, one of ten broad themes governing the National Museum of Australia’s (NMA) new permanent gallery due to open in August 2009.

The Creating a Country Gallery aims to represent the encounters of ideas, people and places that are signposts in the evolution of Australia’s social, political and economic forms. The detailed explorations of particular places will reveal the circumstances that produced these historical encounters, locating them in their geographical and social contexts.

For the exhibit on the Australian city, the NMA has deliberately avoided an abstract centred on the usual themes of the colonial townscape, changes to transportation and the growth of suburbia. This exhibit, like all the others in the new gallery, considers its theme from the perspective of place. Castlecrag will stand alongside displays on Bennelong Point, suburban Brisbane in the late-nineteenth century and Rottnest Island in Western Australia. Visitors will be encouraged to view each place as a particular reflection about how we have built our cities, how they have changed, and how we have responded to life in an urban environment.

The history of Castlecrag offers a fascinating way of exploring and reflecting on the ideas and values that have shaped our homes and our cities. An exhibit on Castlecrag has many tantalizing possibilities. Broadly speaking, the exhibit aims to introduce visitors to the Griffins’ social and architectural vision for a planned residential community. While the objects will tell how Marion and Walter went about building a unique suburban plan, visitors should leave with a strong sense of the Griffins’ philosophical understanding of urban life, the fusion between the natural and built worlds and the kind of society they dreamed of fostering.

The Castlecrag exhibit will revolve around four major themes. The first will consider the creation of Castlecrag and the Greater Sydney Development Association (GSDA). Here the primary objects will be colourful advertising and promotional material held by the National Library and the fabulous cinema advertisement, Beautiful Middle Harbour. The second theme centres on the knitlock machines held by the National Museum of Australia. I have written elsewhere that on first sight of these wondrous machines, I was unsure if they were an elaborate steel clothing press or some kind of medieval torture device. Patented in 1919, Griffin first experimented with the knitlock system in Melbourne and intended to build knitlock homes in Canberra. Yet, it was at Castlecrag where the knitlock system began to take on a much broader cultural significance. It has come to embody both Griffin’s idealism as well as his commitment to a practical, adaptable and democratic architecture.

The third theme heads inside to consider some of the values and attitudes inherent in the Griffins’ approach to interior design. In 1912, the strong-willed Marion revealed something of her attitude to cluttered, over furnished homes (amongst other things!) when she wrote:

The confusion to which we doom ourselves when we use figured wall papers, figured rugs, figured curtains, figured upholstery, is responsible for much of the weariness of the women who spend so much of their time in the house, for peevishness of children…and for [the] crouchiness of men who need rest when they come home from a day’s work…

A spartan Griffin designed desk and lampshade will be key objects in this part of the exhibit.

The final theme has a strong accent on the community of Castlecrag, both in the past and in recent times. Visitors to the gallery should sense the continuity between the Griffins’ vision and the current residents of Castlecrag who continue to celebrate this historical legacy. Few objects convey this with more force that the giant puppets of Walter and Marion. Like the other places being explored in the Australian Cities exhibit, Castlecrag will not be presented in some kind of historical time-warp, dislocated from present day concerns. Indeed, it is the continuities as well as the disjunctions with the past that will make for a fascinating, relevant and lively exhibit. In this vein, I look forward to recording (in a format to be determined) some stories about life in Castlecrag, life in a Griffin home, what attracted people to the area, and most importantly, some of the issues the suburb faces today.

Daniel Oakman, Curator

National Museum of Australia

The 2003 Castlecrag Community Fair on 1 June was an outstanding success. Fine weather brought large crowds and the event served its purpose of bringing our community together. Once again, our mayor, Pat Reilly, officially opened the Fair and met with many of those attending.

All our community groups in The Crag conducted stalls or activities at the Fair and Willoughby Council was well represented with a range of education displays. There was a range of items on sale and all the community groups reported good support for their activities.

The Association extends a big thank you to Kathy Rosenmeyer and her helpers at the Trash and Treasure stall. We are indebted to all those who helped make this such a success. Thanks are also extended to the businesses which participated in the Fair and helped to make it a wonderful day for our community: Castlecrag Newsagent, Shamrock Meats, Rodney Clark, Castlecrag Florist, Castlecrag Quality Meats, Castlecrag Fruiterers, Momo Interiors, Castlecrag Pharmacy, Galleria, Mia, Travelplan Australia, Lunch, Clipso, Christina’s Restaurant, The Professionals, LJ Hooker, PRD Nationwide, Richardson & Wrench, Treats & Temptations, Flavours of Peking, Source and Castlecrag Cellars. With this generous assistance, we covered the cost of staging the Fair and there was a small surplus.

Shop owners, local community groups, young talented children and residents both young and old all came together for the Castlecrag Community Fair on Sunday 3 June. They were pretty much unanimous in declaring the 2007 Fair a great success!

We were fortunate in having beautiful fine day, large crowds descended on our suburb and they had a great variety of entertainment, information and craft stalls, and children’s activities to experience. The restaurants and stores aligning the streets of Edinburgh Road opened their doors to their friendly community with rows of stalls erected.

Whether you were after food, information on local pests or weeds or wanted to pick up some second hand clothing – you would have found it all on this entertaining day.

Willoughby mayor Pat Reilly got proceedings going at 10am by officially opening the new Watergate Walking Trail and the Fair. “It was a great day for a Fair in the historic suburb of Castlecrag,” he said and “the Castlecrag Progress Association has done a great job in bringing together all the community groups and the local businesses of the area to stage this event.” Cr Reilly thanked all those who had helped organise the event and sponsored the Fair, which he said “demonstrated the high level of community interest and support for the event”.

Children of the neighbourhood were entertained on a ride, some were eating cake made by local residents and others were gathered to watch the local girls perform to the beat of Christina Aguilera’s “Candy man”. The bungi jumping was a key attraction for children from the outset, the Wildlife Show held the attention of youngsters from 11am. Sally’s Bookshop offered a book reading of Oscar and Quincy by the author Kerry Millard, much to the delight of smiling young faces.

There was a real buzz around the Fair site throughout the day. Many visitors took time to relax with friends at our coffee shops, taste the wines on offer or explore our shops. The crowd in The Crag was also entertained by the local talented group Saving Grace, one member of which is a son of Pam of Pams’ Café fame. Others came to learn more about Castlecrag’s history and special features by joining one of the guided walks of the suburb.

The day brought many people through the doors of the boutique. The proprietor Sally Crawford said: “we have had lots of locals coming into the store to have a look at our books.”

Jeff Pharar, who has taken over ownership of Romano’s Restaurant said: “it has just been a great opportunity today to get to meet more of the locals in Castlecrag. A lot of the faces are familiar, but we definitely don’t know everybody” he said.

The community stalls offered an amazing variety of information and fund-raising activities. James Smallhorn, Council’s Environmental Projects Officer who grew up in Castlecrag, was assisting other Council staff on the pen Space Branch stall, which provided information leaflets on the local walking tracks, volunteer wildlife and weeding regimes and the highly successful Sustainability Street program. Sustainability Street brings residents together to reduce the impact on their environment.

A number of our community groups have reported that, from their perspective, the Fair was most successful, both in terms of the interest shown by the public and the funds raised to support their ongoing activities.

The Council-led walk along the Watergate Walking Trail got under way immediately after the opening, while Adrienne and John Kabos and Bob McKillop led four walks of the Griffin Conservation Area during the day. It was evident that the participants had come to the Fair to learn more about our suburb, many of them coming from Middle Cove, Castle Cove and North Willoughby, but there were others from further afield, including the Canada Bay Council area. Bob McKillop found two of his old university friends who had come from Perth on the first walk, so this group received ‘special attention’ in an extended walk that lasted 2½ hours!

Jacqueline Levett and Bob McKillop

Our AGM on Sunday 4th May was well-attended and Guest Speaker Linda Cardew gave a most interesting and informative talk on the Civic Place proposal.

Kate Westoby in her President’s Report gave the following summary of the Association’s activities over the past year:

Guest speakers at our meetings have included Greg Woodhams, Council’s Director of Environmental Services, who spoke on the thorny issue of Development Applications. For those with interest in the history of Willoughby, local resident Ian Rannard gave a fascinating talk on the market gardens which once flourished in the area bounded by Eastern Valley Way and Alpha Road. At an earlier meeting, Council’s Traffic Engineer Tony Lehmann outlined proposals for traffic calming installations in Castlecrag, with members of the audience giving suggestions for revisions in keeping with the special heritage nature of Castlecrag.

After its long gestation period, we are happy to report that the Association’s website is now available. We thank Karen Benhar for her professional input.

Recently, the longstanding matter of the Foreshore Building Line has finally been resolved, and the Progress Association congratulates Council for bringing to conclusion a difficult process that needed to address a wide range of interests. While all groups will no doubt have some disappointment at the final result – ours being that the FBL on the Northern Escarpment is not as strong as the line we had hoped for – nevertheless, the outcome will provide significant protection for our foreshores over the coming years.

The Committee prepared a submission regarding Council’s corporate signage in parks, reserves and walkways. This was successful in getting Council’s support for installing the Bim Hilder-designed bronze plaques which have been used in various locations in Castlecrag over past years.

The Progress Association sends delegates to the Federation of Willoughby Progress Associations which meets every two months, for information-sharing meetings on matters of concern to the wider Willoughby community. The Federation has recently made a detailed submission to Council on the revision of DCP 27 which covers notification of Development Applications to interested parties.

Thank you to the hard-working committee which meets every alternate month to our general meetings, and tackles a wide range of issues of importance to maintaining the unique character of Castlecrag.

Kate Westoby, President

Some of you may have noticed work occurring at the Community Centre if you happened to vote there on Polling Day.

A new roof was installed over the Christmas period. Water from the new roof is to be collected in an 8000 litre water tank, plumbed into the toilets and for use on the garden. Additional work is also underway. Over the Easter break a pair of windows on the Southern wall will be converted into doors. These new doors will lead onto what should be a delightful new timber deck. There will be new storage sheds for the Centre’s tables and chairs.

The narrow western side will be landscaped and a path put in which will provide access to the bushland and rock ledges below the centre. This bushland has been quite inaccessible for many years and has some weed issues. The new access will facilitate Council and Community Bush Carers getting to work on the area. In time it may well form another bush track link down to Warners Park.

It is envisaged these works will be completed before the end of May.

Adrian Cox

Ward Councillor, Sailors Bay.

A key focus for the NSW Fire Brigades is assisting communities to prepare for fires and minimise the risk.

Terry Munsey, Deputy Manager, Bushfire Natural Hazards Protection Unit of the NSW Fire Brigades (NSWFB) was the Guest Speaker at the Castlecrag Progress Association’s General Meeting in February. He spoke on the formation and operation of Community Fire Units (CFUs).

Terry stated that the interface between residential areas and bush is a wonderful living environment, but also generates risk of fire. Landowners on the interface with bush have the responsibility for managing the fire risk. These risks relate to three stages of a fire – before it gets there, during the fire and after the fire (e.g., cleaning the roof is important, but not once the fire is on its way.) In the Blue Mountains bushfires of 1994 more people were injured falling off their roofs than by the fires. Property owners need to minimise the risk to their homes and to their neighbours. The local council has a huge task to manage the risk with a bushfire preparedness plan.

The NSW Fire Brigades’ priorities are firstly, your personal safety, secondly, your house, and other assets after that. They work with local councils to develop sound bushfire management plans. Willoughby Council invests a lot of resources to manage the bushland-property interface. The principle is to make the houses at this interface more prepared to counter the fire risk without causing drastic changes to the landscape and associated negative environmental impacts that may occur with widespread hazard reduction measures. Local areas need different approaches, depending on the vegetation species, etc. If the preparation measures are in place and sound hazard reduction strategies are carried out, you will minimise the risk of property damage from bushfires.

CFUs in NSW

The development of CFUs has occurred as the result of the catastrophic bush fire event in 1994 (e.g., in the Lane Cove Valley). Under these conditions, there were not enough fire engines to attend to all calls. Therefore a new strategy was developed to empower people to prepare prior to a fire. There are now 357 CFUs in NSW with over 6000 people in the program. While units occur across all of NSW, they are predominantly in the metropolitan area. The preparation that occurred through CFUs in the Hornsby area prior to the 2002 bushfires (which were very similar to those of 1994) meant that these fires had little impact and not a single home was lost.

About 50 CFUs a year are being formed. They are not intended to be fire-fighting units – the emphasis is on prevention and property protection. Currently there are three CFUs in the Middle Cove/Castle Cove area and the NSWFB is in the process of establishing a fourth. A problem is the high rate of dropout of members – as people are increasingly resource-rich and time-poor.

The NSW Fire Brigade Act gives NSWFB the power to undertake action to extinguish fires, and a change in the Act in 2005 gave the NSWFB responsibility for training CFU members through local fire stations.

The CFU concept

The aim of CFUs is to have communities better prepared when there is a fire in, or approaching, their area. They are located on the urban interface within the NSWFB area and each CFU has a limited area of operation. CFU members work alongside fire fighters, but focus on property protection. The program is not intended to train fire fighters. Units can be equipped with either cabinets (boxes) or trailers and members make a commitment to undertake regular training.

CFU activities include equipment training, education and preparation prior to fire activity. CFU members are required to undertake 12 hours per year to supervised training. This allows NSWFB to assess the preparedness of each CFU.

The NSWFB keeps constant contact with CFUs, and their operation is restricted to very small neighbourhood area. Each CFU is structured under a team leader, who is the point of contact for the CFU. CFU members are covered for workers compensation and liability insurance.

CFUs are informed about fires in their area and need to contact ‘000’ prior to commencing any activities during fires. The CFU regional coordinators respond to fire activity where CFUs are engaged in fire management. ABC Radio is widely used to get information out to communities.

Establishing CFUs in Castlecrag

Castlecrag, with all of its bushland reserves, would benefit by having a number of CFUs established. For example:

• Residents adjacent to the Castlecrag Northern Escarpment might be interested in forming a local CFU;
• The Bulwark area will soon apply to form a CFU (Contacts for this: Richard Newton tel. 9967 4933 or Peter Moffitt tel. 9958 1213).

If your neighbourhood might have an interest in forming a CFU, we suggest that you convene an informal gathering of your neighbours in the first instance; there is an application form on the NSW Fire Brigades website or you can email for more information to cfu.nswfb@nswfire.nsw.goc\v.au.

Of course, if you would like to post a notice in the next issue of The Crag to invite neighbours to get together for this purpose, just contact The Editor and we will be glad to help.

Lorraine Cairnes and Bob McKillop

All Castlecrag residents will have noted the refurbishment work being undertaken by Council on the Griffin Memorial Fountain at the intersection of Sortie Port and Edinburgh Road. The island has been landscaped, the bowl has been repaired, the pump and jets have been refurbished and new lights will shortly be fitted. Willoughby City Council undertook this work in close consultation with the NSW Heritage Office under its maintenance budget.

Bob McKillop and Cr Trevor Morgan reported this good news at the Progress Association General Meeting on 28 February. As the refurbishment does not entail a modern water treatment facility, the operation of the fountain will require regular checking and cleaning of the fountain by local residents. To this end, the Progress Association has formed a ‘Friends of the Fountain Group’, which will inspect and clean the fountain on a roster basis using a kit supplied by Council. A number of residents have already nominated for the Group, but additional support is welcome. Please contact the Progress Association Secretary at 6/77 Edinburgh Road, Castlecrag or phone 9958 5384.

With the formation of the Friends Group, Council will have the fountain operating again in the next few weeks. Council will continue its efforts to obtain additional resources to upgrade the fountain over the longer term.

Progress Association President John Steel has congratulated Council for its achievement in refurbishing the fountain to operating condition and expressed his appreciation of the efforts by Councillors Morgan and Cox in gaining this positive outcome. He said:

“The Griffin Memorial Fountain was constructed in 1965 as a result of a community fund-raising effort to mark the Centenary of Willoughby Municipal Council. The magnificent water sculpture by Bim Hilder was created as a memorial to the creator of our suburb, Walter Burley Griffin. Local residents also helped with the construction. The Mayor, Alderman Laurie McGinty, unveiled the fountain on Centenary Day, 23 October 1965, to the great pleasure of the many residents who attended. It continued to be a feature of the suburb until recent years and has been listed as a heritage item of State and Regional significance by Willoughby Council. The Progress Association has made its restoration a priority project for the community and the funds raised through the Castlecrag Community Fairs have been set-aside for this purpose. The Progress Association will continue to liaise with Council for the long-term conservation of this local icon.”

Burley’s café and restaurant

Many residents will be aware that a new café and restaurant, Burley’s opened at Shop 5, The Quadrangle, in early March, which was formerly Lunch Café & Restaurant. The owners, Malcolm and Janet McLune, have named their venture after Castlecrag’s famous founder and designer, Walter Burley Griffin. Featuring refurbished premises and Modern Australian cuisine, Burley’s is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as coffee anytime in between. The chef aims to have regular changes of menu and also offers daily specials.

Sydney Butcher Boys

The butcher’s shop in The Quadrangle is under new ownership. Ian Goldfinch, trading as Sydney Butcher Boys, renovated the premises and gave the shop a new image for it’s re-opening on 1 March. Ian previously worked for butchers in the eastern suburbs. Sydney Butcher Boys at Castlecrag is his first venture as an owner and his father and mother, John and Sandra, are currently assisted with the business. Ian offers a large range of gourmet meat products, with special lines such as Moroccan basil pesto lamb rumps and Batong Boerewees from South Africa.

Books of local interest

Sally’s Bookshop now has in stock a book about the early days of our community here in Castlecrag and another will be launched there on 31 May. Communism a Love Story by Jeff Sparrow is a biography of Guido Baracchi, a colourful resident of Castlecrag between 1937 and 1945 (and again in 1950). Baracchi’s time in Castlecrag stemmed from his friendship with Walter Burley Griffin in Melbourne. It was characterised by a number of romantic liaisons.

The Crag by Wanda Spathopoulos will be launched at Sally’s Bookshop at 6.30pm on Thursday 31 May. It is a memoir of Wanda’s life in Castlecrag during its early years. A daughter of Edgar Herbert, the physical educational pioneer who lived in Castlecrag from 1927, Wanda is one of the few remaining people to have personally known Walter and Marion Griffin. All are welcome to the book launch, but bookings are essential for what promises to be a very interesting evening –
Phone: 9958 5007. Sally Crawford.

Are you searching for another playground to visit with the children? Make your way to Warners Park, which has recently been refurbished by Willoughby City Council.

The enclosed playground is suitable for young children, though the older ones will be well occupied on the massive climbing frame. A paved bike path for the trikes and bikes with training wheels encircles the sand pit, complete with a water pump, perfect for building dams and rivers. Adults are catered for as well, with two gas barbecues and three covered picnic tables waiting to host the next family outing.

Warners Park is accessible by car through Northbridge by following the signs to The Outpost. For an even more memorable approach, walk down to The Rampart, follow the trail through Keep Reserve and enter the park through the bush.

Jennifer Kos