Rippon Lea Estate – the ABC of garden restoration

With the pending relocation of the ABC studios located next to Rippon Lea Estate comes an opportunity to restore part of the gardens lost in the 1950s, and to provide much needed parking and perhaps a visitors centre.

Rippon Lea Estate, added to the National Heritage List in 2006 and the only private residence on the list, was by the late 1860s a sprawling self sufficient estate of 17ha with pleasure gardens, ornamental lake, greenhouses, orchards, vegetable gardens, service areas, including stables, bushland areas and menagerie.

In the nineteenth century the gardens were considered by many the finest in the colony. The property was remarkably ‘green’, including an efficient water harvesting and drainage system, a stable waste and sewage treatment capacity and treated effluent that was pumped onto the gardens as fertiliser.

Magnolias in bloom at Rippon Lea

Garden looking towards the ABC site

Subdivision began soon after the death of owner Sir Frederick Sargood in 1903 when the property was purchased by Sir Thomas Bent, Premier and land speculator. The estate was tenanted and the service areas, vegetable gardens and orchard were subdivided. The sale of land was continued by the next owner, Benjamin Nathan and his daughter Louisa Jones. The final section of the property sold was 0.8ha, located in the south-east corner of the estate, which went to the Commonwealth Government for the new ABV (later ABC) television studios in 1954.

In 1963 the Commonwealth placed a compulsory acquisition order on a further 1.6ha for the expansion of the studios, an area which would have seen lake and grotto excised and ultimately destroyed.

Melburnians rallied to save Rippon Lea Estate, and more than 10,000 people attended a protest rally organised by the National Trust of Australia (Vic) at the property in the late 1960s. The Jones family, supported by the Trust, continued the fight to save Rippon Lea and just prior to Mrs Jones’ death in 1973, the Commonwealth’s compulsory acquisition order was lifted and the surviving estate was bequeathed to the Trust for all Victorians to enjoy.

The area of land sold to the ABC included a dense background planting to the lake with associated path systems and garden beds, a windmill that fed the waterfall and gardens, open bushland and the southern end of what is called ‘The Chase’, which was apparently created in 1868, connecting the property to Elsternwick and the local railway station, and was the main service entrance to the estate.

The Trust is proposing that only a portion of the ABC land be returned to Rippon Lea. The area shown would give the Trust the opportunity to restore some of the lost gardens to link in with the Grotto, currently the subject of Federally-funded conservation works. The Chase would also be reinstated to its full extent, thus re-opening an entrance to the estate that disappeared long ago.

The return of this section of land could also create a landscaped buffer zone between any development on the remaining ABC site and the Rippon Lea gardens. Public access would be improved by providing much needed parking for cars and coaches for educational and other groups. The Trust would also have the opportunity to develop new visitor facilities such as education and exhibition spaces.

Text by Phil Tulk, Estates and Garden Manager