Authors: Dr Sue Rosen & Ms Emily Pickering.
Client: NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service.
One of our major research projects this year was preparing a history of European occupation of Gogerly’s Point in the Royal National Park for NPWS. This work is intended as a resource in their evaluation of the heritage impact of development activities on their estate at Gogerly’s Point. No detailed study of its development that records prior owners and the mark they have left on the place exists.
We traced the history of the point through time, beginning with Thomas Lord and Charles Gogerly from 1845 and 1854. After the sale in 1888 to Sydney solicitor Edward Percy Simpson, Gogerly’s Point became for some 70 years an elite beach side retreat. Stuart Douglas Ritchie acquired Simpson’s Mount Telford in 1906 and progressively acquired the northern most half of the Point.
Other notable residences, are Rathane, constructed by Henry Lamont Mackellar, c. 1899. Hilltop was constructed by the Rofe family after acquisition the Gogerly house site in 1906 and prior to 1910. The Allen legal family lived at Mombarra across the water at Lilli Pilli.
Post war there was a reconsolidation of ownership to the Sydney Diocese of the Church of England Property Trust and the Crown.