Saving Estcourt House

My activist role is better described as a watchdog, providing WACRA with information about developments that may threaten our local built environment heritage. As suggested earlier, local people do not appear to have much say in planning laws nowadays; they are very complicated and hard to engage with. My view is that the state government, with the new act, has all the cards in their hands. Local government has been systematically disempowered to such a degree that the community has little democratic input into planning and heritage.

Saving Estcourt House

Theo Ellenbroek

Late in 2016 we heard that the historic mansion, Estcourt House, situated in the Tennyson Dunes, was to be demolished to make way for a retirement village. Arguing for protection of heritage, I alerted the authorities on behalf of WACRA.

Frederick Estcourt Bucknall came to South Australia in 1860. In 1869 he built a boathouse and hotel which local people at Port Adelaide called ‘The Kerosine Tin’. He soon owned other hotels in the area and was involved in the Marine Terraces (‘The Marines’) at Grange, using the same architects, Bayer and Withall. Bucknall built Estcourt House, a 17-room Military Road mansion, in 1882, anticipating a proposed inland harbour on the Port River (now West Lakes). The Bucknall family, including 11 children, moved into Estcourt House in 1883. Financial problems were looming. The Commercial Bank of Australia, in which Bucknall held most of his money, collapsed in 1886. He was declared bankrupt and was forced to sell Estcourt House.

Since the house sale by Bucknall in 1886, the site and building have served as an abode for people with disabilities, catering for ‘crippled children and aged blind’, the language used in 1894. Over the years many organisations used this space as a facility, providing services to those in need of care. The government stepped in and bought the property in 1978. It became a branch of the Adelaide Children’s Hospital in 1981. In 1982 it was known as Ru Rua, housing children with intellectual disabilities. In 1995, the government sold Estcourt House to a private company.

In an effort to save Estcourt House, WACRA went into campaign mode and we mobilised our local networks. Developing an argument to save Estcourt House became a priority. We organised a public forum at Henley Town Hall. At the same time, we gathered information, researched Estcourt House heritage, and alerted our membership and other community organisations. The timing aspects of the campaign were crucial. When we were ready, we contacted the local newspapers and made written representations to the City of Charles Sturt (Development Act 1993), including one in January 2018.

Charles Sturt Council’s Planning Officer Anthony Zollo said that ‘34 people made submissions against the proposal for the January 2019 meeting’. It is recorded that both sides of government (Minister Stephen Mullighan for the ALP and Opposition leader Steven Marshall for the Liberals) were against the proposed demolition: ‘MPs join community fight to save historic home’ was the line run by the Weekly Times Messenger 17 January 2018. The Westside Weekly Times Messenger (page 4, 24 January 2018) reported (in anticipation):