Difference between revisions of "Family Hotel / Cleveland House"

Revision as of 13:47, 3 March 2011

 The 1870’s & 1880’s were a boom time in Mallala with many of the main buildings such as Mallala Hotel, Post Office, Institute, Primary School, Flour Mill & the Methodist, Catholic & Church of England Churches all being built in that period.
In the midst of this boom, in 1877, a two-storey hotel was built by Johannes Schirmer at 7 Adelaide Road, known as the Schirmers Family Hotel. It was an imposing building in Mallala at that time, - being dwarfed only by the new Flour Mill built in the following year.
It is interesting to note that at this time, Johannes was the licensee of the Mallala Hotel – just across the paddock -somewhat a conflict of interest!
He relinquished his licence on the Mallala Hotel on 8th. June 1879 & commenced in the new hotel on 8th. December 1879. He transferred the licence to William Nicholls on 22nd. March 1881 who renamed it the Family Hotel, & Johannes went back to Adelaide where he had had a long history in the hotel business.
William Nicholls relinquished his licence on 21st. March 1882 & below is a list of the following licensees.
21-03-1882       -           George.C. Lowson
22-08-1883       -           Thomas Henry South 
29-12-1886       -           William Rowan
8-02-1887         -           Charles Jesse Garrood
The township of Mallala apparently could not support two hotels, for on 10th. March 1887 it was de-licensed & sold as a private residence, & it would appear that it was then named Cleveland House.
 Records of occupants from that point in time are unknown until it was purchased by Reverend Thomas Weatherill some time before 1921. He was a Methodist Preacher as well as a Doctor & the room at the northern side entrance was his Surgery. His son Arthur –[known as “Marker’] was an agent for East Bros.
Sydney Dean Roberts bought Cleveland House from Rev. Weatherill in 1921 for ₤1500 on a walk in- walk out basis. At this time the cellars were closed up & the top floor removed except for one upstairs bathroom which was retained within the roof & continued to be used. The wrought iron railing from the upper floor balcony became the front fence at “Marker” Weatherill’s house on Balaklava Road, adjacent to the Methodist Church.
From 1921 to 1924 Sydney Robert’s wife Ellen operated Cleveland House as a boarding house, while Sydney worked as a labourer lumping bags of wheat, or as a contractor with horses & scoops building the Mallala – Long Plains railway line. Their youngest daughter Viola was born at Cleveland House in February 1923 & her aged alcoholic uncle, Richard Loveday Jnr. was allowed to live in a stone outbuilding.
Cleveland House was sold to E.M.Richards – probably about 1930 & for most of the 1930’s the front rooms on the northern corner of the building were used as a drapers shop, & the sign at the front read “E.M. Richards Draper & Clothier”

In 1939 Mr. A.E [Bert] Pym, a local contracting carpenter, heard that Mort. Richards was off to the war & Cleveland House was for sale for ₤150. He travelled to Balaklava to see the selling agent to be told the price was actually ₤250  but saw it as a bargain, & bought it on the spot. Mort. Richards called at Cleveland House shortly after on his way to Adelaide, dressed in his army uniform, to join his unit. He offered Bert Pym twice the amount he had paid, but Bert was not interested – he had already started work on modifying the building
Because the house in its present format was too big for him & also the front wall being badly affected by salt damp, Bert Pym demolished two of the front rooms & established a new façade to the building on the first line of the inside walls on the northern end; except for the southern front room. He realigned that wall by shifting it six feet inwards & erected the pillars of the veranda on that alignment. He then removed the remaining section of the upper floor & built a very high gabled roof in its place. The exposed cellars were filled with rubble from the demolished walls.
During this time he sold a block of land on the northern side for ₤10 to Bennett & Fisher for their agency, & in the mid-fifties he sold the block on the southern side to Archie Griffiths, & this is where Fay & Malcolm Dunstan currently live.
During the construction of the RAAF base at Mallala, the large yard area on the south side was used to store construction timbers for the base & a small saw mill was set up to cut the timber. He converted Cleveland House into four flats initially, living in the largest & renting the others to personnel from the Mallala RAAF base.
 Bert’s son Neville remembers the property in its original layout in the 1940’s. when the house came out to the footpath. There was a stone building also aligned to the footpath on the south side, consisting of three stables, coach shed & tack room. At the rear of the backyard there was a very deep, brick-lined well with a small stone building adjacent to house the pump & there was a large underground tank by the house.
The garden area on the northern side was divided into three areas – at the front were roses, shrubs & lawn, the centre section was vegetables & at the rear were rows of citrus & fruit trees with almond trees along the eastern boundary.
Bert Pym later took over the whole house for his family & in 1954 he set up a regional pest control business from the property, & after his retirement it remained an appointment agency for the firm.
Cleveland House remained in the Pym family until 1991, when after the death of both Bert & his wife Glad, it was sold on 12th. December 1991 & has been occupied since then as a private residence.

Brian Verrall.
10-02-11

Related Articles

• Mallala Hotel
• Mallala Agricultural Society Show
• Weatherills Billiard Saloon

External Links

Sources

• Australian Hotels Assoc. [S.A. Branch]
• Neville Pym