Clydebank, Millers Point, Heritage house in Millers Point, Australia.
Clydebank is a two-storey Old Colonial Regency house built in 1824 at 43 Lower Fort Street, Millers Point. Its upper floors are rendered brick with five bays of twelve-pane windows and French doors, while the basement is cut into the slope to Downshire Street in rough coursed stone. A 1972 link joins the 1845 coach house, now a garage, to the main building.
Robert Crawford, Principal Clerk to the NSW Colonial Secretary, was granted land at Cockle Bay in June 1823 and built the main house in 1824–25, naming it Clyde Bank after his Scottish roots. Financial trouble forced him to sell it in 1828 to John Terry Hughes; Captain Joseph Moore, a master mariner, bought it in 1835–36 and ran Moore's Wharf below, from where the first shipment of gold left for Britain in 1851. The NSW Government resumed the property in 1903 for the Sydney Harbour Trust.
The house carries several names: Crawford called it Clyde Bank after his Scottish home, and it was later known as Holbeck, St Elmo and, from 1940, Bligh House. From 1961 to 1990 it was leased by the Australian College of General Practitioners, and afterwards housed a private gallery of early colonial art and furniture.
Clydebank stands at 43 Lower Fort Street, with its basement cut into the slope down to Downshire Street, so the two-storey facade is seen from Lower Fort Street and the lower level from below. It is a private residence; the exterior, including the Georgian five-bay front of twelve-pane windows and French doors, is viewed from the street.
Clydebank's name comes from Robert Crawford's 1825 letter to his father in Scotland, in which he wrote "I call it Clyde Bank" because it looked out over Cockle Bay. The house was later known as Holbeck, St Elmo and, from 1940, Bligh House. Its basement is cut into the steep slope down to Downshire Street.
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