41 Hooper St

Source: The NSW Dept of Environment and Heritage

(Alternate address  39-43 Victoria St, also Allen Cottage)

Fermoy is one of Mount Victoria’s earliest homes. The original c1880 Victorian Georgian cottage is remarkably intact within the present elongated form. The house stands in substantial grounds with evidence of the original gardens including the border plantings to Hooper St.

The site of “Fermoy” was once a part of the land granted to Henry Bell on 10 September 1872. It is one of the earliest surviving homes in Mount Victoria and is shown in a photograph of “Allen”, held by the Mount Victoria and District Historical Society, which is dated 1884 and suggests that the house, then known as Allen Cottage, was build around 1880. Its original form was a Victorian Georgian verandahed cottage.

It passed into the possession of the Butler family. William Henry Butler arrived in Mount Victoria in June 1895 to work as night officer on the railway station. (Lithgow Mercury 7.6.1895 & Dalziell, Mount Victoria, Sept 1954). The Butlers acquired land on Hooper Street where they had Nos 6 to 10 erected in 1917, and according to Council rate records acquired “Allen” around the same period of time and subsequently occupied it. The family held onto the property for a number of years after William Butler died, around 1924. By the early twentieth century, Mrs Butler was advertising an unfurnished cottage to let. In the 1916 Hartley Roll, Allen cottage is given as the address of the Butler Family, by then including Ann, Gladys Mary and William Henry. It was subsequently altered and extended, with parts used for professional premises.

In 1947 a local commercial artist, George Hubble and his wife Doreen purchased “Allen” although Council rate records suggest that the Hubbles were occupying the house in the years prior to this. After acquiring the property they quickly disposed of it selling it to a local chef, William John Brown in October 1948. The name of the house was changed to “Fermay” (or “Fermoy”). In March 1958 the title to the property was altered when it was transferred to the names of William and Rose Brown Street.

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This page is part of the Great Places project about places in Mount Victoria. Each place in Mount Victoria will, one day, have its own page where its story can be told.

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