Particulars of Sale of Freehold land at Heidelberg
All that piece of land being part of Crown portion 5 Parish of Keelbundora County of Bourke and being lot 13 on plan of subdivision No 4658 lodged in the Office of Titles together with a right of carriage way over Heidelberg Avenue* shown on said plan’. (* Now Finlayson Street)
On July 4th, 1906 the above property was purchased from Robert William Kennedy of Ivanhoe by Clotilde Joseph Marie des Anges Davies, wife of William Charles Davies of the National Bank of Australasia Melbourne, for the sum of two hundred & eighty five pounds, nine shillings and fourpence. The property consisted of approximately 13 acres, and correspondence dated 1912 indicate the postal address as ‘corner of Rosanna and Plenty Roads, Heidelberg’. Soon after it was decided to build a house on the front part of the block but its completion was delayed by a builders’ strike which lasted for about nine months. With the death of Mrs Davies in that same year, the property then passed to Mr Davies, who subsequently remarried.
The 17 square Edwardian timber home with return verandah, was built of jarrah on massive red gum stumps. The terra cotta roof tiles were brought out from France and the ornamental dragons (gargoyles), from Wales. The ornate fittings of the three bedroomed home included stained glass windows, carved fireplaces with marble surrounds, high ceilings and wood panelling. The poppy motif of the verandah fretwork appeared also in the windows and on the chimneys. The interior kitchen, scullery and bathroom walls with were clad with ripple iron. Adjacent to the kitchen were inner and outer pantries and a maid’s bedroom. The house was named ‘Andermatt’, after one of Mr Davies favourite places in Switzerland, visited during his travels as a banking inspector.
An orchard and garden were established with a variety of trees: lemon, cumquat, fig, persimmon, purple gage plum, cherry, apple, crab-apple, pear, almond, walnut, guava and ornamental peach. A palm tree in the centre of the front garden was to become an imposing landmark. Andermatt stood behind big white cyclone gates, with a curved gravel drive winding to the stables, coach house, and brick cottage built for isolation purposes during the 1918 ‘flu epidemic, at the rear.
Rosanna
In those days Rosanna consisted of only about twenty houses spread around in acres and acres of open paddocks. The roads were un-named and un-made, covered with blue metal broken up with a big sledgehammer by a little old man named Paddy Cashin. In the summer evenings fruit wagons passed by going into market from Hurstbridge and Diamond Creek. The steam train travelled to Heidelberg station, with three steam trains up and and three down per day, taking an hour to get in to Princes Bridge, Melbourne. Electricity was not available until 1923.
Andermatt
W.C. Davies brought his wife Eleanor, and daughter Yvonne (‘Bonnie’ b. 1909) from St Kilda, to live at the completed Andermatt. Miss Marion Bray, the postmistress, who lived diagonally opposite a small distance away and who ran some cows and later a riding school, became Bonnie’s governess until she commenced school at ‘Coerwull’ (later Ivanhoe Girls Grammar).
(Note: during the 1950’s , after her death, Miss Bray’s house was brought forward and now stands on the south side of Lower Plenty road, diagonally across from ‘Rosanna Views’)
On 28 August, 1923, the wind blew at 68 miles per hour. As William Davies walked to the Rosanna station he was hit from behind by a bolting horse harnessed to a fish cart. He died at home later that day before he could be taken to the hospital. Bonnie and her mother stayed on at Andermatt. The next few years were very hard.
Banfield Family
In 1929 Bonnie married Harry/Henry Banfield from Heidelberg. He came to live at Andermatt where, with Bonnie’s mother, they began farming. Eventually they were to lease and purchase additional acreage so that they developed a dairy herd of 80-90 head of cattle. It was a mixed herd of Jersey, Ayrshire and Friesian cattle, milked by hand until the late 1940’s. Later they were to purchase a milking machine from H.G. Bartram of Viewbank. Their dairy (positioned in what is now Dafield court, with the milking shed further behind), was a brick building with a slate roof and 4-5steps down into the ground to keep the milk cool. The milk cans were carried down to the front to be collected by the carter.
Bonnie’s mother remained living with Bonnie and her family (children: Ralph, Dorothy, Ken) until her death in 1952.
The Banfield’s began to wind down their big dairy herd in about 1949, due to the residential development of Rosanna. The ‘Kambea’estate development, a subdivsion of other property owned by Bonnie and Harry, opposite was settled largely by Polish and Ukraine families.
1950s
In the mid to late 1950s The property was reduced to approximately 1 ½ acres surrounding Andermatt. Prior to this sale the land had been frozen as the Education Department wished to acquire a portion of it. As the subdivision plans had been in place for a considerable length of time the Tribunal declared that the land should be freed. The Education Department then had to purchase the land for the existing Golf Links Primary School. The subdivision, ‘Dafield Estate’ included the formation of Dafield Court & Interlaken Parade. The latter was previously gazetted and named (also by W.C. Davies for the same reason as the naming of Andermatt) but had not been formed. Victoria Roads Pty. Ltd. carried out these works in 1957, as well as bulldozing the existing dairy into local depression and removing the old cow bail pavement, for the sum of one thousand, six hundred and forty three pounds, fourteen shillings and sixpence. A condition of subdivision was that a certain portion of land had to be donated to the council. The piece was used for the existing kindergarten. It was intended to name the rear court “Banfield’ Court but this was disallowed because of possible confusion with Bamfield Rd, West Heidelberg. The names Davies and Banfield were combined to give Dafield Court.
Property sold
Bonnie and Harry continued at Andermatt, with Harry working at APM Fairfield until forced retirement due to a heart attack in 1960. Harry died in 1978. Bonnie and longstanding ‘lawnmover’, thoroughbred horse “Peter”, remained at Andermatt until 1980. The difficulty of upkeep of the grounds led to Bonnie’s decision to sell. Requests for classification by the National Trust and assistance from the Heidelberg Historical society to help maintain Andermatt, were fruitless. The house was passed in at auction on June 7th 1980, and sold afterwards to St. Martin’s Roman Catholic Church.
Bonnie moved to Montmorency, then to Judge Book Village Eltham, where she resided until her death in November 2002.
The house was tenanted until 1983 when after a two week vacancy the house was vandalised and stripped of fittings. The leadlight windows, internal doors and mantelpieces were stolen, along with the gargoyles from the roof. Andermatt was subsequently demolished, with the outbuildings and gardens also removed. Significant portions were purchased and reconstructed in a house located in Eltham North, Until recently all that remained at 267 Lower Plenty Rd, was the imposing palm tree, the remains of the front brick steps, and the beautiful gum tree which now stands at the entrance to Rosanna Views.
Sources:
Yvonne Banfield (see: Yesterday’s Daughter, Ed. Alma Bushell. Nelson)
Dorothy Lemin (nee Banfield)
Compiled by Marion Lemi
Photo: Andermatt, circa 1980 Lemin Family Collection, YPRL
