Join Mark Matheson on a tour of the South End of the Cook’s River. Hear about a wealthy merchant named Alexander Spark who hired John Verge in 1833 for a small marine villa in an Arcadian setting of 100 acres he named Tempe. He wanted an ornamental lake for his romantic picnic parties and he got it. He wanted artists to record his family home and at least seventeen artists have painted here. This walk also examines the remnants of a quite different house, the semi-Gothick ‘The Warren’ by George Mansfield for that difficult man the former Colonial State Treasurer Thomas Holt.
We will see how the river was perceived and used by others— as a source of fresh water, as a potential second harbour for industry, a canal and a drain. The river was the scene for pleasure, romance, guerilla warfare and political expediency. We’ll hear about the Aboriginal resistance fighter known as Pemulway, the acerbic Lady Jane Franklin, the Chinese market gardeners, the poet Louisa Lawson, the young Dorothy Hewett, the religious zealot, the unhappy painter, the condescending engineers and the young life-savers. And also about the more than 120 men, women and children who have drowned or committed suicide in the river.
NB. Some degree of walking challenge with wet grass and steep incline.