Lydham Hall, Historic residence in Rockdale, Australia

Lydham Hall is a former rural homestead in Rockdale, completed between 1875 and 1879. It has four large rooms, each 14 by 20 feet, arranged around a central hall 10 feet wide. A narrow staircase at the southern side of the hall leads to two upper rooms, each 18 feet 6 inches square, lit by near-dormer windows. Full-length windows face north, east and south; the west-facing windows are smaller.

Joseph Davis, a master butcher from Sussex, England, bought the land in 1859 and had the house built between 1878 and 1879 by two Swedish stonemasons, the Benson brothers. The house was completed as the Rockdale area was beginning to grow as a residential settlement.

Christina Stead lived here from 1910 to 1917 as a child, when her mother Ada rented the house after marrying David George Stead. She entertained her half-siblings with stories and poems, and later drew on these years for several short stories and her novel The Man Who Loved Children. Lydham Hall is the only house in Australia open to the public where Stead lived.

The house is managed by the St George Historical Society and opens to visitors on specific days only. Inside, furniture and objects from the 1860s to 1880s are on display, giving a sense of everyday domestic life from that period.

The house stands at the highest point between Cooks River and Georges River, a position that led the builders to orient the windows to catch sea breezes from several directions. This natural ventilation was a deliberate design choice, not an incidental feature.