Rainbow Lodge and Grounds (I), c. 2004, courtesy of NSW Office of Environment and Heritage.
Details
Haddon Hall, on the Great Western Highway at Hazelbrook, near Woodford, was opened as a boys' home by the Sydney City Mission in 1950, taking boys from Stonehaven. In 1951 the boys were moved to Mt Gibraltar, Bowral, and girls from Mt Gibraltar were placed in Haddon Hall. Haddon Hall closed in 1967 and the remaining girls were transferred to Cowley House at Cronulla.
The buildings used for Haddon Hall consisted of two old weatherboard cottages and a substantial inter-war bungalow building called Yama that had been built by Japanese businessman and vice-consul Toransuki Kitamura. Kitsamura died in 1930 and, after some time, his Australian wife Mabel sold the property to the Sydney City Mission.
Haddon Hall was opened by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir John Northcott, in November 1950 to house undernourished boys. The boys had previously been cared for at the Sydney City Mission's home Stonehaven at Springwood (also in the Blue Mountains). In 1951, the boys were relocated to Mt Gibraltar at Bowral, and the girls from that home moved into Haddon Hall. In 1967, the home closed and the remaining girls were transferred to Cowley House at Cronulla.
In 1970 the property was acquired by the Handicapped Children's Centre of New South Wales, who renamed it as Rainbow Lodge.
Sources used to compile this entry: Heritage Branch, 'Rainbow Lodge and Grounds', in State Heritage Register, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, 2004, https://www.hms.heritage.nsw.gov.au/App/Item/ViewItem?itemId=1170660; Owen, June, The Heart of the City: the first 125 years of the Sydney City Mission, Kangaroo Press, 1987; Thinee, Kristy and Bradford, Tracy, Connecting Kin: Guide to Records, A guide to help people separated from their families search for their records [completed in 1998], New South Wales Department of Community Services, Sydney, New South Wales, 1998, https://clan.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/connectkin_guide.pdf.
Prepared by: Naomi Parry
Created: 21 March 2011, Last modified: 18 May 2014
Last updated: 4 August 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/nsw/biogs/NE00356b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
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