Tay Creggan | Strathcona Girls Grammar School Tay Creggan | Strathcona Girls Grammar School

Built in Hawthorn in 1889, Tay Creggan is considered one of Australia's most important houses.

"Tay Creggan" - the house on the rocks - is the fantastical building of gables, dormers, turrets and tall, twinned chimney stacks that can be glimpsed from across the Yarra at Richmond.

The Original house was built by prominent Melbourne architect Robert Guyon Whittlesey Purchas in 1891-2, whose late nineteenth and early twentieth century houses exemplify the Arts and Crafts approach to the 'total work of art'. It is significant as one of his finest works.

In 1892 the house was bought by Michael Spencer, whose family crest appears above the fireplace in the hall. Purchas designed a number of changes to the house for Spencer, including the conversion of the ballroom to a grand billiard room. Following Spencer's death in 1900 his widow married A H McKean, and the house was further altered, with the enlargement of the entrance hall and new stairs constructed.

Tay Creggan is architecturally significant as one of the finest examples in Victoria of the Victorian Queen Anne Revival style, incorporating many Elizabethan-period features, and as one of most picturesque houses built in Victoria in the late nineteenth century. From the scalloped terracotta roof tiling, fancy fretwork and finials, the ''candle snuffer'' profile of the most prominent turret, the many pretty porches and the diamond leadlight in bay windows that project from the timbered upper storey.

In 1937, under the direction of Archbishop Daniel Mannix, the house was purchased by the Catholic Church for The Ladies of the Grail, a lay order of women devoted to inculcating Christian beliefs in young women. The Grail initially ran residential training courses for young Catholic women and later added the Tudor Hall and dormitories, now used as classrooms, which offered boarding facilities for girls from the country or interstate. In 1963, one of the residents was Anne Summers, author, journalist, editor and political activist, whose recollections of time spent living here are recorded in her book The Lost Mother.

In 1969 it was sold to the Baptist Union of Victoria for use by Strathcona Girls School, and is now the Year 9 campus. Since then extensions and renovation works have been carried out, including the replacement of the roof tiles and the addition of a large new kitchen in place of the original.

Strathcona Girls Grammar School

34 Scott Street,
Canterbury Victoria 3126
+61 3 8779 7500

❊ Address ❊

 ⊜  30 Yarra Street,  Hawthorn 3122 View Map
 ✆ Telephone: 9819 1218

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❊ Web Links ❊

➼ Tay Creggan | Strathcona Girls Grammar School 

➼ www.strathcona.vic.edu.au

➼ www.facebook.com/StrathconaGirlsGrammar

➼ www.federationhome.com






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