Sydney Opera House conservation plan

–7–Designing a colonial church, Vol.1, 54–55). As the stables were to be stylisticallyconsistent with the house it is not surprising that it too showedsimilarities to Thornbury. Even the tower of Fort Macquarie bore afamily resemblance.Governor Ralph Darling made a second attempt at achieving a newgovernment house in 1827. He held a competition for a plan which hiswife Eliza reputedly won. The project, like its predecessor, was stillbornbut the Darlings did manage to erect a castellated bathing house with octagonaltowers on the Farm Cove waterfront not far from Fort Macquarie(fig.4). Eliza Darling probably had a substantial hand in its design (Kerr& Broadbent, 47). CharlesRodius made an accuratepencil sketch of the bathinghouse and fort fromMrs Macquarie’s Point in1833.Bennelong Point’s romanticmarine landscape wasfinally completed in 1843when the present governmenthouse was finished.It was designed inEngland by Edward Blorefor the site selected byMacquarie but was actually built on the ridge halfway between thestables and Fort Macquarie (fig.5). The style was Late Gothic or Tudor.The ‘genius’ of the Point was still considered to be most peculiarlyGothic and a generation of artists, amateur and professional, nevertired of depicting its elements (fig.6).6. George Halsted’s watercolourof Bennelong Point from theRocks showing GovernmentHouse, the Tarpeian Rock face,Fort Macquarie and Fort Denisonin 1863. Mitchell Library.The prosaic James Maclehose, in his 1839 guide to Sydney, ends hisdescription of Fort Macquarie with the following:the chief pride of this town is the excellent walks roundthe Domain, passing Fort Macquarie (Maclehose, 122).A third of a century later Anthony Trollope added:I despair of being able to convey to any reader my ownidea of the beauty of Sydney Harbour. I have seen nothingto equal it… (Trollope, 30).He particularly commendeda walk from the bottom of Macquarie Street… leadinground by the fort, under the Governor’s house, to thepublic gardens (Trollope, 33).What the Macquaries had done (with prior help from Phillip and Blighand some subsequent support from the Darlings and Bourke) was tocreate an environment which appealed to the Picturesque sensibilitiesof generations to come. It was enough to ward off the grosserdemands for commercial and maritime developments which weresought throughout the nineteenth century.Lionel Gilbert illustrates the point in his quote from William CharlesWentworth’s 1819 lament that ‘Government House and the adjoining