Hyde Park Barracks Domes Restoration Project

Image: detail of watercolour ‘Light House, South Head of Pt. Jackson’ in the album Drawing in Sydney 1840-50 PX*D123 State Library of New South Wales

You’d think it would have been a simple and straight forward project…re-roof a couple of tiny guardhouses with timber framed domes, covered in a handful of shingles. Find out why there’s more to this than hardwood, hammers and nails in a series of ponderous talks on what makes this challenging project tick, what’s been learnt and what’s been gained.

Join us at the Barracks for lunchtime talks on 27 July (Clive Lucas) and 3 August (Kate Clark) – find out more here.

Convict architect Francis Greenway incorporated his characteristic calotte ‘skull cap’ domes in several projects such as over a stairhall at the nearby Supreme Court (1820-27) in King Street. The Macquarie Lighthouse, South Head (1819, demolished 1883) was designed with domes over linked pavilions, a similar composition to the HPB gate lodges. The dome of the fountain, Macquarie Place (c1817, altered 1840s, demolished c1882), emerged from a shaped blocking course or parapet, like those of the Hyde Park Barracks guard houses.

Image: Fountain, Macquarie Place, engraving from Joseph Fowles, Sydney in 1848, Historic Houses Trust, Caroline Simpson Library & Research collection

Nash’s Foley House 1794, Haverfordwest sourced from wikimedia commons here

With Greenway’s design of Hyde Park Barracks (and 80 known works and attributions) a case may be made for his acquaintance with John Nash (1752-1835) and emulation of a range of motifs evident in Nash’s commissions such as:

Relieving arches in series reading as blind arcading (as in HPB main block exterior ground floor treatment)

– Nash’s Foley House, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire 1794
– Llanaeron, Cardiganshire, 1794
– Whitson Court, near Newport, Monmouthshire, 1795
– Hereford Gaol, 1796
– The Warrens, Brayshaw, Hampshire, 1800-02

Enclosed gables (as in HPB main block exterior, east and west elevations)

– Nash’s Ffynone, Pembrokeshire 1792-96
– Foley House, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire 1794
– Glanwysc, Llangattock, Breconshire c. 1795
– The Warrens, Brayshaw, Hampshire, 1800-02.

Hemispherical domes (as in HPB gate lodge domes)

– Nash’s mausoleum of Thomas Nash, Farnigham, Kent, 1778
– County House, Stafford, Staffordshire, 1794
– Sundridge Park, Bromley, Kent, 1799
– Balindoon, Co Sligo c1800
– Design for Bulstrode House, Buckinghamshire 1801-02
– The Quadrant (west side), Regent Street London, 1809-26

Australian colonial architecture may be seen as provincial as the architecture of Greenway’s native Bristol. However, Greenway’s architectural competence and association with John Nash (later the Prince Regent’s architect and the architect who recast Regency London in classical garb) lifted him above many of his peers in Sydney or the English provinces. His shingle-clad Hyde Park Barracks guardhouse domes in their ‘primitive’ simplicity gave Governor Macquarie’s principal Sydney street a metropolitan sophistication.

References

Broadbent, James and Hughes, Joy, Francis Greenway architect, Glebe NSW, Historic Houses Trust of NSW, 1997
Mansbridge, Michael, John Nash a complete catalogue 1752-1835, New York 1991

John Wallis of Noel T. Leach Builders has prefabricated the south dome’s frame at ground level for an understanding of Greenway’s unusual design. The domes were constructed of curved timber ribs (cut out of solid pieces of Eucalyptus sp hardwood) braced with substantial circular plates and vertical studs and covered with Forest oak (Casuarina torulosa) shingles overlaid on narrow battens.

Greenway designed his domes as self-conciously stripped back elemental forms, a ‘primitive’ tendency favoured by Regency architects such as Sir John Soane which was possibly ultimately inspired by the writings of the philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The drum, largely hidden behind the parapet, lifted the dome above the surrounding sandstone roof, giving it a floating quality.

Photo: Scott Carlin

The reconstruction of the Hyde Park Barracks’ twin guardhouse domes has been guided by two pieces of evidence – the diameter of the dome is defined by a pronounced dripline on the carved sandstone roof and the diameter of the drum is defined by the surviving circular hardwood double base plate.

This original double base plate was made up of many hardwood segments that were marked with Roman numerals cut with a single chisel blow. This tells us that the dome was probably prefabricated at the Sydney Lumber Yard (corner of Bridge and George Streets) before re-assembly on site in c1819. A double plate was used for strength.

The northern dome was removed in the early 1860s (probably owing to breakdown of the shingles and ribbed structure) and the guardhouse roofed over with corrugated metal sheeting. Two cut-down vertical studs (or forked tenons) also survived the reroofing and were discovered by archaeologists in 1982. The base plate and studs have been re-incorporated into the new northern dome structure.

Image: Northern guardhouse drum with two rings of hardwood – one above the other – connected with vertical studs. The darker timbers are pieces rescued by archaeologists in 1982 and re-incorporated. Photograph by Scott Carlin