Carthona – 85 Todman Avenue – Kensington/Randwick – New South Wales

 

"Carthona" – 85 Todman Avenue - Kensington - New South Wales

Before you Google “Carthona Sydney,” pause. The famous Gothic pile on the harbour is Carthona at Darling Point Sir Thomas Mitchell’s sandstone mansion. This post is the other one: a single-storey Federation Queen Anne cottage at 85 Todman Avenue, Kensington, State Heritage Register #00555.

Randwick’s plaque and the council story card say the house was erected about 1910 by Richard H. Gallagher, a tradesman plasterer. (Heritage NSW’s historical note says “Frank Gallagher” same family sale trail; prefer the plaque’s Richard H. and flag the variance.) Brick on a sandstone base, slate roof with terracotta ridge, leadlight and etched star-pattern glass, ornamental plaster ceilings with Australian flora and fauna motifs — the sort of interior that only survives when one family never “improves” it to death.

That family kept Carthona from the build until a 1986 sale, still almost original. The National Trust waved a flag; an Interim Conservation Order landed in February 1986, a Permanent Conservation Order in February 1988, and transfer to the State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. Later rear works (1986, 2009) touched kitchens and verandahs — the street face and principal rooms are why it is listed.