Download Heritage Register - Customs Marine Centre, Neutral Bay, NSW

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Heritage Register
Customs Marine Centre, Neutral
Bay, NSW
Finance ID Number
Commonwealth
Heritage List Place
ID Number
Ownership
DFD-61019
105249
Owned by Finance on
behalf of the
Commonwealth. The
property is currently
leased to the
Australian Customs
Service.
View of the Harbour from Customs Marine Centre.
Source: Godden Mackay Logan 2008.
Location
The Customs Marine Centre is located on the
waterfront at the southern end of Ben Boyd
Road, Neutral Bay, Sydney, NSW.
Landscape Setting
Customs Marine Depot is located on the
waterfront of Neutral Bay in the North Shore of
Sydney. Development of the area was initially
limited by the steep topography of the site.
View looking west along the foreshore, adjacent to the
southern facade of the administration office building,
towards the workshop/boat shed. Source:
Godden Mackay Logan 2008.
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Description of the Place
The Customs Marine Centre depot is on two levels, with two buildings on the lower level nearest the
water. These are an office building with training rooms, dating from the 1960s, and a workshop and
slipway building. The office building has a flat steel roof, and a concrete frame with brick panel
walling. The workshop has a skillion corrugated iron roof, with a steel and timber frame. Various
elements of the Halvorsen buildings have been used in its construction, including some framing,
interior flooring and slipway elements. On the upper level of the site are garden beds and car parks;
in one garden there is an 1898 headstone moved from another site.
Located in one corner of the workshop building is the pump. It consists of a wooden pump barrel,
approximately 120 cm high, with an inside diameter of 15 cm, with an iron spindle, now
immoveable, in the centre. The base is now firmly encased in the concrete apron of the major
slipway at the Customs deport. A commemorative plaque, as detailed above, is affixed to the
woodwork. The pump is the earliest visible feature of waterfront industry at Neutral Bay and is of
exceptional interest as an example of handmade pumping technology from the period.
Other items of significance include slipway remnants (used by Halvorsens and earlier shipbuilders)
along the inter-tidal zone on the foreshore, and the remains of the seawall, built of the woolstore's
squared sandstone blocks featuring a pecked finish. The top and toe of the seawall are covered in
concrete. Also, on the cliff face, there is a range of artefacts affixed to the sandstone including iron
bolts, brackets and spikes, iron and terracotta pipes and sections of concrete.
There may be archaeological evidence of earlier boatsheds on the site, especially under the
reclaimed foreshore, and jetty remnants under the water.
The use of the site by the Customs Service represents a continuation of the area's maritime activities
which have been carried out for over 150 years. It is one of the few remaining maritime industrial
sites on the north shore of Sydney Harbour.
There is potential archaeological evidence adjacent to the site boundaries: under the car park to the
east, and below the low water mark in the harbour.
The top-level entrance to the
workshop building.
View looking southeast from the car
park. The Port Jackson fig has high
cultural landscape value, and
features in all historic photos of the
site.
View looking west, along the top
garden on the upper level of the site.
Source: Godden Mackay Logan 2008.
History and Summary of Uses of the Place
In 1842 the young English stockbroker, financier, entrepreneur and adventurer Benjamin Boyd
arrived in Sydney on his yacht the Wanderer and speedily became one of the colony's business and
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social leaders. Within a few years he was prominent as a banker, a pastoralist controlling vast
holdings and a founder of a large-scale whaling operation.
In the course of these activities he established himself at Neutral Bay - first as a resident, the lessee
of the substantial property Craignathan (on the waterfront, facing what is now Hayes Street; it is
now demolished but a stone wall possibly associated with it survives and is within RNE record 14699)
- and then erecting a large three-storey woolstore and woolscour adjacent. The latter was fed by a
stream which flowed from the heights above and was retained by a masonry dam before exhausting
into the harbour only a few metres away.
Boyd was able to have the wool from his pastoral properties shipped directly from coastal ports to
Neutral Bay, stored and treated there, and shipped out again directly for export.
A pump was installed presumably to provide fresh water for the woolscour and other waterfront
activities, which were some distance from the stream which fed the dam. It was no doubt placed in
the way of a substantial flow from a branch of the above stream, some of which still is visible on the
rock face behind the pump, and which probably still percolates through the rock seams into a sump
for the pump.
By the end of the depression-ridden 1840s, Boyd's Australian enterprises had failed. He abandoned
them to try his luck on the California goldfields, but was unsuccessful. In 1851 on the way back to
Australia in the Wanderer, he went ashore in the Solomon Islands and disappeared. He is believed to
have been murdered by the islanders. Returning with the news, the Wanderer was wrecked on the
bar of Port Macquarie.
After the collapse of Boyd's Australian empire, industry continued to spread along the Neutral Bay
waterfront - including a gasworks, timberyard and a number of boat builders and repair yards (the
first steamship to be built in Australia, the ferry Surprise, had been constructed in the Bay as early as
1831). The wool store was demolished in 1878 and the stone was used in a seawall at the site.
Boyd's waterfront site including the pump became a boatyard, which for much of the first half of the
twentieth century was that of the Halvorsen Brothers. Founded by Norwegian Lars Halvorsen, this
company has been a major boat builder for many decades, has built some significant vessels and is
well known in Australia. Halvorsens were operating at the site from the 1920s until 1937 when their
works moved to Ryde, but they continued to hold an interest in the Neutral Bay site.
At the beginning of the Second World War, the whole area, including Craignathan, was acquired by
the RAAF as a base for its marine wing. Many alterations were made over the next 20 years
(Craignathan was demolished in 1968), and in the course of one of these the old pump, still standing
but in a sad state of dilapidation, was rediscovered, to some extent restored, and a plaque affixed
reading:
'This tablet commemorates the site of the residence, dam, wharf and woolstore once standing in this
vicinity which belonged to Benjamin Boyd (1795-1851), merchant, financier, whaler and shipping
owner of Sydney Town and Twofold Bay in the 1840's.
This tablet is attached to a wooden pump shaft with iron rod, which were uncovered by Halvorsen
Brothers in the 1930's and preserved by the subsequent occupiers, the RAAF. Tablet affixed by No 2
Aircraft Detachment 'B' RAAF, and unveiled by the Minister of State for the Air, the Hon, F M
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Osborne DSC, MP on 10 November 1958.' (Boyd was probably born c.1803.)
Shortly after this unveiling, the site was transferred to the Marine Centre of the Australian Customs
Service as a depot for its boarding vessels and impounded craft. The practice of boarding incoming
vessels has now ceased. The site has seen more than one and a half centuries of industrial usage.
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Statutory Heritage Values
Commonwealth Heritage List
View looking east along the foreshore,
adjacent to the southern facade of the
office building showing retaining wall.
The seawall in front of the office
building is reputedly constructed of
former wool store and Craignthan
stonework. Source: Godden Mackay
Logan 2008.
Customs Marine Centre, is a Commonwealth Heritage place and
is protected under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity
Conservation Act 1999.
Statement of Significance
The Customs Marine Centre, and particularly the 1840s pump,
the seawall, the artefacts on the cliff face and the slipway and
boatshed remains and other elements are of historical
significance for several reasons. The site is associated with Ben
Boyd's industrial enterprise on Neutral Bay in the 1840s and in
turn is connected with commerce on Sydney Harbour and the
wider colony's growing pastoral and commercial development.
Also, the site was associated with shipbuilding and ship repair
activities, and with wartime and customs maritime duties. The
site, particularly significant for its long and continuing
association with waterfront commercial and industrial
operations, is one of the few remaining maritime industrial sites
on the north shore of the harbour.
The pump is of exceptional interest as an example of handmade
pumping technology as used in mid-nineteenth century
industrial processes connected with the wool industry.
The site has direct associations with 1840s entrepreneur and
adventurer Ben Boyd, who made a strong impression in colonial
NSW and who not only built the woolstore and woolscour but
lived adjacent to the works. The site is also associated with the
prominent boat-building firm Halvorsens who are well known in
Australia and who traded from the site for a considerable
number of years in the twentieth century.
The place has strong potential to yield archaeological evidence
of former shipbuilding and other activities over several phases.
Criterion A
Process
Western bay of the workshop building
showing the remarkably long
undressed timber posts, thought to
have been retained from a previous
boatshed on the site. Source: Godden
Mackay Logan 2008
Criterion B
Rarity
Possessing a definite maritime industrial character, and being
located right on the Sydney Harbour foreshore at Neutral Bay,
the Customs Centre has important aesthetic values.
Gazetted Commonwealth Heritage values
The Customs Marine Centre, and particularly the 1840s pump,
the seawall, the artefacts on the cliff face and the slipway and
boatshed remains and other elements are of historical
significance for several reasons. The site is associated with Ben
Boyd's industrial enterprise on Neutral Bay in the 1840s and in
turn is connected with commerce on Sydney Harbour and the
wider colony's growing pastoral and commercial development.
Also, the site was associated with shipbuilding and ship repair
activities, and with wartime and customs maritime duties. The
site is particularly significant for its long and continuing
association with waterfront commercial and industrial
operations.
Gazetted Commonwealth Heritage values
The Customs Marine Centre is one of the few remaining
maritime industrial sites on the north shore of the harbour. The
pump is of exceptional interest as an example of handmade
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pumping technology as used in mid-nineteenth century
industrial processes connected with the wool industry.
View looking northeast toward the
Neutral Bay Customs Marine Depot
Godden Mackay Logan, 2008
Criterion C
Research
Gazetted Commonwealth Heritage values
The place has strong potential to yield archaeological evidence
of former shipbuilding and other activities over several phases
The steel boat cradle located in the
rear of the western bay of the
workshop building, associated with
the slipway The boat cradle and
spillway are no longer in use.
Criterion D
Characteristics
Gazetted Commonwealth Heritage values
The pump is of exceptional interest as an example of handmade
pumping technology as used in mid-nineteenth century industrial
processes connected with the wool industry
Ben Boyd’s water pump, located at the
rear (northern) end of the western bay
of the workshop building
Criterion E
Aesthetic
Gazetted Commonwealth Heritage values
Criterion H
Significant people
Gazetted Commonwealth Heritage values
Possessing a definite maritime industrial character, and being
located right on the Sydney Harbour foreshore at Neutral Bay,
the Customs Centre has important aesthetic values.
The site has direct associations with 1840s entrepreneur and
adventurer Ben Boyd, who made a strong impression in colonial
NSW and who not only built the woolstore and woolscour but
lived adjacent to the works. The site is also associated with the
prominent boat-building firm Halvorsens who are well known in
Australia and who traded from the site for a considerable number
of years in the twentieth century.
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Non-Statutory Heritage Listings
North Sydney Draft Local
Environment Plan
Property or Information Access
Restrictions or Requirements if
Any
Conservation Documents or
References
Customs Marine Centre is identified as a place of heritage
significance in the North Sydney Draft Local Environment Plan.
As the site is located on Commonwealth land the LEP inclusion
does not have legal effect.
Customs Marine Centre is used a training centre and is not open
to the public.
Godden Mackay Logan, 2008. Customs Marine Depot, Draft
Heritage Management Plan
Godden Mackay Logan, "Heritage Assessment: Customs Marine
Centre, Neutral Bay", for Knight Frank, March 2001.
National Trust of Australia (NSW), information.
North Shore Times, 25 October 1978.
Sydney Morning Herald, 26 Novemeber 1931.
Pike, Douglas (ed), "Australian Dictionary of Biography", vol 1,
Melbourne University Press, 1966.
Record Last Updated
30 October 2013