The Braes Garden - Heritage

One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin. Shakespeare

HERITAGE

The Braes is a private property which has an area in excess of 2 hectares. Eight of the twelve lots of the present area are listed as a Heritage Item in the Blue Mountains City Council Local Environment Plan 1991 as "a good representative example of the garden design and constructions of Paul Sorensen, a noted Blue Mountains landscape consultant".

The Braes was one of three Sorensen gardens in Leura noted for their heritage value in the first heritage study of the Blue Mountains commissioned by the Blue Mountains City Council in the early 1980s. The other two gardens so identified were the National Trust's Everglades and Sorensen's Nursery (now a development site) which remains in private ownership.

The earliest documented information on The Braes land-use relates to the owners of Chateau Napier. According to the Blue Mountains Shire 1920-1922 rate books Lots 14 to 18 Tennyson Street were owned by the Estate of McSweeney and identified as a "Dairy". There is also a 1923 reference for the same lots being owned by the McSweeney family with the property identified as "Napier Poultry Farm". (Information contained in letter from Local History Section, Blue Mountains City Library, dated 24th February, 1989).

A major period of development in Leura was from 1910 through to the 1920s. Leura was actively promoted as a tourist destination and there was a local boom in the development of weekend cottages, hotels and guesthouses, especially during the inter-war period. One of the locally popular guesthouses at the time was Chateau Napier which was owned by the McSweeney family and located at the corner of the Great Western Highway and Leura Mall.

Opened in 1910 the Chateau Napier guesthouse was extended five years later to increase the accommodation capacity to 150 people. On the 2nd of December 1957, a major bushfire, originating from the northern Grose Valley side, swept through Leura. Chateau Napier was burned down in that fire along with 127 other properties in the area.

A lands title search reveals that members of the McSweeney family owned The Braes from 1914 to 1943. It is therefore conceivable that part of The Braes could have been used to provide fresh produce for Chateau Napier. The adjacent property Lot 33 was owned by the Knight family and operated as a market garden.

The property includes a small weatherboard cottage known to have been built early in the 20th century with ancillary structures and interlocking ponds principally developed in the 1970s.

Dry Stone Walls
The Braes are lucky in having four walls which are strongly associated with the memory of Paul Sorensen, the landscape designer who made such an impact on the gardens of the Blue Mountains. These walls are dry stone walls built using a technique which has survived from pre-historic times. Across Europe and through the farmlands of Great Britain, the grey low stone walls divide the fields and demonstrate the skills of artisans hundreds of years ago.

About Paul Sorensen
Paul Sorensen (1890 - 1983) was a landscape gardener born and trained in Denmark. He had experience working in gardens in Denmark, Germany, France and Switzerland, some of which were in large estates with extensive grounds. He arrived in Australia in 1915 and settled in the Blue Mountains in 1917.

The main source of information about him is the book "Australia's Master Gardener: Paul Sorensen and his gardens" Kangaroo Press (1990) by Richard Ratcliffe.

Paul Sorensen is recognised as an accomplished landscape gardener having either designed or influenced the design of many gardens in New South Wales. He was celebrated for his distinctive designs and his mastery of the use of the dry stone wall technique combined with a skill in managing dramatic changes of levels in gardens. He is reported as being extremely versatile with skills in design, propagation, planting and the building and maintenance of gardens of a wide range of size and style.

Paul recognised the local craftsmen as skilled practioners of the art. Subsequent to Paul Sorensen's involvement in the mid-40s, Eric Johnstone, a local mason built several similarly styled wall terraces at The Braes which are now in excellent condition. They provide a graceful and elegant contrast to the flowers, trees and shrubs of the garden.

Sorensen's View
“Trees and shrubs were always seen by Sorensen as the most important elements of a garden and were always placed to create a feeling of mystery as to what was behind them, as well as giving the usual feeling of enclosure and shelter. Subtle changes in colour and texture of foliage were commonly used to increase the apparent visual dimensions of the space being designed.”

An extract from 'Australia's Master Gardener
- Paul Sorensen and His Gardens'
by R Ratcliffe (1990)

Heritage Gardens

The conservation of heritage gardens poses special problems due to the rate of change in the constituent parts. This means that particular care needs to be taken in establishing what is required to be protected and/or needs to be removed to promote life and permit change.

Issues will vary from garden to garden. Some gardens will contain trees and plants which are examples of highly specialised and/or rare species which must be conserved. Others will have specific trees which are valued because of their historic significance, age or appearance. Many gardens will be valued in part for the examples of built environment of a particular period or association, such as the association with Paul Sorensen and The Braes heritage garden. Obviously, buildings, walls and paths are identifiable broadly and can be maintained within the heritage guidelines.

Plants, trees and outdoor rooms and vistas are more difficult. Many valued plants are annuals and many shrubs have a limited life. Here common sense and respect for the garden should dictate how and how often plants are replaced. We have seen in the past ten years how perceptions as to the value and acceptability of many garden plants have changed. Cotoneasters and radiata pines are now environmental weeds after many years of being admired and valued.

The management of outdoor rooms and of vistas in gardens also requires care. Many outdoor rooms have been established here and in Europe with plantings within those rooms of young trees. Over fifty, one hundred or two hundred years, those trees have matured and grown and now obscure the room or vista they were meant to complement. This problem arose at Vaucluse House where the Historic Houses Trust's decision to remove healthy trees of great age to preserve William Wentworth's view of Sydney Harbour was controversial but held to be appropriate (Conservation Plan, JS Kerr, 2000, The National Trust of Australia).

At the Palace of Versailles, the destruction in a storm in December 1999 of many fine, ancient trees in the gardens was later held to be to the advantage of the gardens as a whole as the removal of the trees revealed the outdoor rooms envisaged by the original design, 350 years ago (Smithsonian Journeys, Issue July 2001).

Governments are posed with a dilemma in supporting or requiring the preservation of the remains of the past. This is particularly so in regard to the preservation of heritage gardens. If the regulation of the management of a garden is undertaken too stringently, it can mean that it is not feasible, emotionally or financially, for a private person to continue to own the property. Public bodies also do not have the funds to undertake maintenance to the levels of some of the standards imposed. (See quality of National Park Management adjacent to the Braes)

Some may argue that from the archaeological point of view, it is better that no maintenance be undertaken rather than maintenance not complying with a rigid requirement to continue to replicate exactly the species, size, colour and pruning patterns of the existing garden. This, of course, poses the question of the existence of buildings and gardens as part of the continuum of life.

Distinguished French architect, Philippe Robert, has espoused the construct of "adaptive re-use" in much-admired designs for the preservation of ancient buildings in Paris. He argues that it is better that old sites be preserved using respectful adaptation as a way of financing their survival.

It is clear that the principle of adaptive re-use has direct application to the conservation of heritage gardens. It is suggested that as time passes, more Australian government organisations will adopt these principles rather than be charged with setting the scene for the decay and destruction by neglect of many of the notable heritage gardens of the country.

The early classification of heritage garden significance should also be more carefully reviewed using modern technology with historic visual records in order to ensure equitable management of our nation's heritage.

While Government bodies sponsor research and/or confirmation of past heritage classification by notable and authoritative academics and professionals, their support resources are often recently qualified contractors under time pressure to provide answers with limited resources and prepare reports with indirect supervision reflecting partially complete documentation which often forms the basis of the heritage classification and continuing administration.

While cost and time pressures lead to these outcomes, there is little consideration of private individuals who are the temporary custodians of buildings, gardens and other assets so classified.

While some recent articles question the involvement of Sorensen in the design of Everglades (Tanner et al), historic photographic analysis of Council's records reveal significant differences in both the scale and complexity of the garden development at Everglades compared to The Braes (1947).

EXTRACT FROM HERITAGE REPORT 2004

Adaptive Re-use

Distinguished French architect, Philippe Robert, has espoused the construct of “adaptive re-use” in much-admired designs for the preservation of ancient buildings in Paris. He argues that it is better that old sites be preserved using respectful adaptation as a way of financing their survival.

Critical in the management of legislative instruments is the requirement for Government agencies and others administering legislation and regulation to be appropriately educated to not only deal with the archaeological, engineering, environmental and scientific issues, but rather have a capacity to work with the community and owners in particular in preserving heritage items rather than overseeing their progressive decay or obligation to a contemporary issue of the environment or its indigenous origins which do not reflect the .... of its Heritage Management.

A Unique Garden
The Braes represents a period in the history of the Blue Mountains where gardens are reflections and memories of notable gardens and parks left behind in Europe.

Reflecting a period in the history of the Blue Mountains the Braes evokes memories of notable gardens once enjoyed by travellers, scholars, immigrants, professionals and industrialists in the northern hemisphere.

Adapting European garden ideals to local conditions resulted in an unusual juxtaposition contrasting with the tall stands of eucalyptus bushland and dramatically changing landform.

In this context, The Braes, one of the largest private gardens in South Leura, provides an example of a European inspired landscape wedged between urban, semi-rural and wild native bushland in a World Heritage National Park.

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1947: Aerial photo depicts initial garden plantings and
established trees to the east of the knoll and
the open spaces to the west at the time of Paul Sorenson's involvement. The photograph also reveals the terrace wall in front of the small cottage on the knoll and down the driveway
and at the entrance.