Sydney Church of England Girls' Grammar School Moss Vale to be demolished

Australia Broadcast Center

11 hours ago

A disused private school with a tragic history has sat empty on a lush country estate south of Sydney for decades.
But now, half a century after it closed its doors, the Sydney Church of England Girls' Grammar School (SCEGGS) in Moss Vale has been approved for demolition.
The decision by Wingecarribee Shire Council's local planning panel has shed renewed light on the site's unwanted place in Australian history.
In 1961, an armed intruder entered the school and took a group of girls hostage inside its chapel before fatally shooting student Wendy Luscombe.
Julia McKay and dozens of other students hid underneath the pews.
"I remember getting home and telling my mother and father. [They] were incredulous and said: 'That can't be true', and then they saw it on the news that night," Ms McKay said.
The shooter, Leonard Lawson, was eventually sentenced to life in prison.
He became known as the "comic-book killer" and the fate of murals he painted on the walls of the old Grafton jail was recently the subject of furious debate.
Despite that dark chapter in its history, Ms McKay, now 73, said it was "terribly tragic" that the historic buildings have deteriorated beyond the point of restoration.
It was financial mismanagement, rather than tragedy, that forced the school to close 13 years later.
Local historian David Baxter said a misappropriation of funds by the controller of the Anglican Diocesan schools caused the wider SCEGGS network to disband, resulting in the closure of campuses at Moss Vale, Bowral, and Wollongong.
He said during its prime, SCEGGS Moss Vale was a well-known institution in private education run on a 150-hectare property with an on-site dairy, ornate gardens, tennis court, and lake.
Heather Cobham attended the school as a boarder in 1974 and said she enjoyed the close-knit community.
"It was like having the sisters I never had. I also remember it being a very sporty place too," she said.
Mr Baxter said the site had a colourful history long before it became a school.
The hilltop property called "Austermere" was acquired by English settler William Hutchins in 1822 before being passed on to his son-in-law Sir John Lackey, a magistrate and NSW politician.
The property included a private railway line, which allowed Sir John to travel to Sydney.
"It was basically used to drop him home," Mr Baxter said.
"And when the duplication of the railway line happened years later, Austermere wasn't required, so they bypassed it through to Moss Vale."
The grounds were transformed into an orphanage in the 1920s, before the subdivided block was sold to SCEGGS in 1930.
More recently, plans to turn the property into a residential aged-care home were fought through the NSW Supreme Court but were knocked back.
Austemere House and the surrounding grounds were recognised by Wingecarribee Shire Council as items of heritage significance in 2010.
But the empty site has since fallen into disrepair.
In July, the local planning panel approved the demolition of the remaining buildings, including Austermere House.
The application by Fides Environmental Pty Ltd on behalf of the owners said the buildings "do not meet the thresholds for NSW heritage criteria".
"The buildings are potentially no longer safe and pose a threat to the local community and the environment with windblown materials and a severe fire risk," it said.
As part of consent conditions, a Heritage Asset Action Plan must be created before demolition works can start, detailing what materials and vegetation can be salvaged, as well as how the site's history will be made publicly available.
The ABC has attempted to contact the property's owners, the Lam Family Trust, to enquire about the future of the site.