Glass Negatives from the Holtermann Collection & Holtermann Mansion, North Sydney

Bernhardt Otto Holtermann’s North Sydney mansion became a vantage point for some of the most celebrated glass-plate views of colonial Sydney. The Holtermann Collection, now held by the State Library of NSW, preserves large-format negatives that document harbour defences, racecourses, streetscapes and panoramic harbour vistas. This post brings together mansion views, architectural plans and related Sydney subjects drawn from that glass-negative tradition.

Architectural plan for the Union Club, Bligh and Bent Streets, Sydney — Holtermann Collection glass negative.

Further architectural plan of the Union Club, Bent Street, Sydney — Holtermann Collection.

Street view at Cooper Street and Abercrombie Place, Redfern — Holtermann Collection glass negative.

Hansom cabs and buggies overlooking race day at Randwick Racecourse — Holtermann Collection.

Harbour defence works and fortifications at Middle Head, Sydney Harbour — Holtermann Collection.

The Holtermann Mansion, North Sydney — Bernhardt Otto Holtermann’s residence linked to the glass-plate collection.

View toward Middle Head gun emplacements from the harbour — Holtermann Collection.

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Another harbour view of Middle Head gun emplacements — Holtermann Collection.

Merton Lodge — Holtermann Collection glass negative.

Panorama of Sydney from the Holtermann residence, North Sydney (panel).

Panorama of Sydney from the Holtermann residence, North Sydney (panel).

Panorama of Sydney from the Holtermann mansion, North Sydney (panel).

Panorama of Sydney from the Holtermann mansion, North Sydney (panel).

Panorama of Sydney from the Holtermann mansion, North Sydney (panel).

Panorama of Sydney from the Holtermann mansion, North Sydney (panel).

Panorama of Sydney from the Holtermann mansion, North Sydney (panel).

Panorama of Sydney from the Holtermann mansion, North Sydney (panel).

Panorama of Sydney from the Holtermann mansion, North Sydney (panel).

Architectural plans for offices and stables on the Holtermann property, North Sydney.

Race day at Randwick Racecourse — Holtermann Collection glass negative.

Race day crowds and course at Randwick Racecourse — Holtermann Collection.

Further race-day scene at Randwick Racecourse — Holtermann Collection.

The Gap, ocean cliffs at South Head, Watsons Bay — Holtermann Collection.

Cocks Family Hotel, corner of New South Head Road and Ocean Street — Holtermann Collection.

Historic Sydney view from the Holtermann Collection (subject not labelled on the file).

State Library of NSW Holtermann Collection plate (subject not labelled in the post).

“The Towers” - Lavender Bay - The Holtermann Gold Nugget

You won’t find “The Towers” on a North Sydney street walk anymore — Shore School sits on the ridge above Lavender Bay where Bernhardt (Bernard) Otto Holtermann’s mansion once punched the skyline. The money came fast: in October 1872 the Star of Hope mine at Hill End threw up the Holtermann gold specimen — the famous “nugget,” really a huge gold-in-quartz mass — and suddenly the German-born miner could build like a prince.

Around 1874–75 he put up an extraordinary house with a tall central tower that gave the place its nickname. That tower wasn’t just showing off. With photographer Charles Bayliss he turned it into a camera platform and shot vast harbour panoramas — plates exhibited internationally (including Philadelphia) and still among the sharpest records of 1870s Sydney and the north shore. Holtermann died in 1885. The house passed via Thomas Dibbs of neighbouring Graythwaite to the new Sydney Church of England Grammar School.

By the mid-1930s — roughly fifty years after it rose — Shore encased mansion and tower in modern brickwork and effectively demolished them as the campus grew. What’s left for the rest of us is the Holtermann photographic collection: the viewpoint survived as glass plates long after the tower came down.

Bernhardt Holtermann with the Star of Hope gold specimen — the fortune that paid for The Towers above Lavender Bay. (Holtermann Collection / State Library of NSW)

Sydney Harbour from Holtermann’s tower, 1875. (Holtermann Collection / SLNSW)

North Sydney and Sydney Harbour, 1875 — Charles Bayliss / B.O. Holtermann. (Holtermann Collection)