#CommonGround @ the Powerhouse Museum. Part 3. Where did the Ashfield bandstand come from?.

I'm celebrating the generosity of the National Library of Australia.  

The people in the Pictures Branch of the NLA have sent me a high resolution copy of an image to use during my talk next Saturday night.

It's not this one, but here's a photograph from the Powerhouse Museum's Tyrrell photography collection of a bandstand in Ashfield:

It is an extraordinary structure.  I've never seen anything else like it being used as a bandstand in Australia.

Significantly it is topped by a crown showing some sort of Royal connection.  This is an important clue.

Notes online at the Powerhouse Museum only date the photograph between 1859 and 1917.

Now, the suburb of Ashfield in New South Wales is certainly a grand place however it seemed unlikely to me that it had been the scene of a royal visit in the early part of the 1900s.  So the crown on the structure is therefore out of place.

A while back I decided  to find out more, and eventually tracked down a pamphlet issued by the Ashfield Council which stated that the bandstand had been used in Federation Celebrations as a pavilion for the welcome of Lord Hopetoun, Australia's first Governor-General.

It was recycled as the bandstand in 1903!

But what did it originally look like?

The best place to find out was to try and locate it on Picture Australia.

If we search for "Lord Hopetoun 1901"  the first result returned is "Landing of Lord Hopetoun, Sydney 1901", and we find out the image is at the National Library of Australia.

Going direct to the website of the National Library of Australia, we find an even better photograph composed of two images side by side to create a panorama:

( Landing of Governor-General, Farm Cove, Commonwealth celebrations, [1901] [picture])

The State Library of New South Wales also has a good view of the original pavilion here; and at Ashfield here.

An architectural mystery solved.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you.  You can't find this bandstand in Ashfield anymore.  It was demolished in the 1940s due to terminal decay.

Comments

[George Lombard]

Good get Mr LasD. A shame you didn't mention that the writer of Mary Poppins grew up in sight of the bandstand (although it may not have been there when she was) and also noteworthy is the sad fate of her statue, which is often beheaded I understand.

[Bob Meade]

My dear George, I did not know that about Pamela Travers. Thanks.

[Nico]

not too relatatet to this topic. but as I recognize the rowingboats on the second picture, did you know that an important landmark for the head of the river race [oxford vs cambridge that is, the boatrace in London] is "the bandstand" next to the Thames?
I would like to join a regatta that passes Ashfield ;)