Chorley Avenue, Cheltenham
From the corner of Chorley Avenue and Cheltenham Road, look northwards along Chorley Avenue to see how the road is not intrusive in the vista before you: there are wide mown verges, there are no curbs or gutter and trees are both native and exotic – blackbutt, red mahogany and Sydney peppermint. This scene is a classic landscape.
3. This was the home of Owen Ludlow, a lawyer who purchased the law practice of Marie Byles when she retired from practice. It was built by the Hon J F Dey – for which see 7. It was sold in 2021.
4 has diamond paned windows that are shuttered. It is of the dark blue Thornleigh brick. It has shingles in the gable and a recently landscaped garden that contributes to the setting of the house.
7, is an imposing two-storeyed pale brick home of the 1950s with again an entry framed like 20 Sutherland Road, but this time with the addition of a keystone. It has a beautiful garden. Formerly it was the home of Mr Justice John Dey (of the NSW Industrial Commission) (1911-1994) and his wife Keelah. As they aged they moved into 3 Chorley, on the corner, for their last years in Cheltenham. It was from 3 that they were members of the Civic Trust from 1985 to 1994. This was the address of G Ross for membership of the Civic Trust in 2007.
11, This was the home of William (Billy) Ewart Hart. Born in Parramatta in 1885 he built his first aeroplane in 1910. In September 1911 he purchased a Bristol Box kite from a touring British aeroplane company and after a few lessons flew it solo by the following November. He received Australian aviator’s licence number 1 on 5 December 1911. The month before he flew 76 km from Penrith to Sydney completing the first cross country flight in NSW in 55 minutes and reaching 6,500ft. In the following year on 29 June he won Australia’s first air race flying from 32 km from Botany to Parramatta Park. A memorial in Parramatta Park commemorates this event. In 1912 he was badly injured flying at Richmond and while he had a flying school and acted as an instructor (including in No 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps in the First World War) he never flew again. He enlisted in the First World War to fly (having to go to London to enlist but cabled his mother “the leg that was so badly broken in the big smash at Richmond came against him.”
He had a heart attack and died suddenly in Sydney on 29 July 1943. The RAAF flew overhead at his funeral.
This was the address of Mrs M Hartley for membership of the Civic Trust between 1990 and 2000 and Mr Crittenden in 2006.
15, Norcull, was originally the home of Mr Cecil Ernest Rahn (1897-1988) and his wife Eva May (nee Littlejohn) from 1929 until at least 1963. In the electoral rolls his occupation is recorded as being a labourer. Note in particular the carvings at the bottom of the flight of imposing stairs. On one side an owl and the other a pelican and chick. There is an imposing deodar in the front year and the use of columns combined with the brick. The windows are leadlight.
The house is listed on the Hornsby Shire Council Heritage Register which comprises Schedule 5 (Environmental Heritage) of the Hornsby Local Environment Plan 2013.