Quirang – Edgecliff Road / Trelawney Street – Woollahra (Edgecliff fringe) NSW
Demolished 1966 · Built c.1864 · Name survives on the flat tower at 6 Trelawney Street
Not Quambi. Not Quiraing-with-an-i though the Skye landform is almost certainly why a pastoralist picked the word. Quirang was the big house on the block bounded by Edgecliff Road, Trelawney Street, Fullerton Road (once Oatley Street) and Wellington Street. In 1966 the mansion went; a high-rise kept the name. This post draws on the Woollahra Libraries card.
At a glance
- Location: island block — Edgecliff Road, Trelawney Street, Fullerton Road (previously Oatley Street), Wellington Street, Woollahra (eastern-suburbs Edgecliff / Woollahra edge)
- Built: c.1864
- Builder / first associated owner: the Hon. John Duncan MacLean, pastoralist (Woollahra Local History Fast Facts)
- Later occupants (Woollahra Fast Facts): John Fraser; Walter Lamb; the Hon. William Halliday, M.L.C.
- Name: local spelling Quirang; Scottish landform usually Quiraing (Isle of Skye) — Quiraing is the Skye spelling, Quirang the Sydney house name
- Fate: Demolished 1966; replaced by the high-rise residential block also called Quirang at 6 Trelawney Street
- Heritage: demolished — no standing mansion listing; photograph and Fast Facts are the public memory trail
- Disambiguation: ≠ Quambi (Albert Street, Edgecliff, demolished 1930s → Quambi Place); Eynesbury (also Albert / Edgecliff Road world)
Site & setting
Eastern ridge country above Cooper Park / Edgecliff Road — large nineteenth-century villa allotments later sliced by Fullerton, Trelawney and Wellington. The Quirang block was a full street-bounded island: mansion as landmark, then tower as landmark. Aboriginal Country: Cadigal / neighbouring clans of the Eora Nation on the south harbour slopes; always acknowledge before the pastoralist story.
The live blog files Quirang under Edgecliff; Woollahra Councils local history card files the demolished house under Woollahra with those four street boundaries. Both are geographically honest — publish “Woollahra / Edgecliff” and move on.
Timeline
- c.1864 – House built for / by the Hon. John Duncan MacLean, pastoralist (Woollahra Fast Facts).
- Later 19th–early 20th c. – Occupied in turn by John Fraser, Walter Lamb, and the Hon. William Halliday, M.L.C. (same Fast Facts card — deepen via Sands / Trove before adding dates).
- 1958 – Photographed by Ian Scott (Woollahra Libraries Digital Archive pf002215) — the photograph on this post.
- 1966 – Mansion demolished; high-rise Quirang rises at 6 Trelawney Street, keeping the name.
- Today – Tower occupies the memory; mansion survives in the archive photo and subdivision / rate trails still to be mined.
People & anecdotes
John Duncan MacLean — pastoralist, “Hon.” in the Woollahra card — plants a Scottish toponym on a Sydney ridge. Quiraing on Skye is the famous landslip amphitheatre; nineteenth-century colonists loved a Highland name on a harbour view.
Fraser, Lamb, Halliday names on the Fast Facts card only in this pass. Halliday as M.L.C. is the political hook; chase Trove obituaries and Sands before writing dinner-party fiction.
What stands today
The mansion does not stand. The Quirang apartment building at 6 Trelawney Street, Woollahra keeps the name on the same block. No house-museum visit — only archive, street walk, and the 1958 photograph.
What you can do:
- Walk the Trelawney / Edgecliff Road / Wellington perimeter and imagine the vanished curtilage.
- Use Woollahra Libraries Digital Archive (pf002215 and related files).
- Cross-check the Quambi and Eynesbury posts so readers never confuse the three.
Sources & further reading
- Woollahra Municipal Council — Local history fast facts – Q (Quirang / Quambi entries): https://www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au/Library/Local-history/Local-history-fast-facts/q
- Woollahra Libraries Digital Archive — Ian Scott, Quirang, 1958, pf002215
- Trove — “Quirang Woollahra / Edgecliff / Halliday / MacLean
- Sands Directories — Trelawney / Edgecliff Road entries
- Etymology only: Quiraing, Isle of Skye (standard references) — not a Sydney primary source
Related on this blog
- Quambi – Albert Street – Edgecliff (different house)
- Eyensbury / Eynesbury – Edgecliff
- Fenton 8 Albert Street – Edgecliff (search Fenton)
- Other Edgecliff Road villas (Fiona / Ascham precinct, etc.)