Kurkulla
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| Kurkulla | |
|---|---|
  Location of Kurkulla in New South Wales  Kurkulla (Australia) | |
| Location | Evans Lane, Bowral, Wingecarribee Shire, New South Wales, Australia |
| Coordinates | 34°27′55″S 150°25′09″E / 34.4653°S 150.4192°E |
| Built | 1880 |
| Official name | Kurkulla |
| Type | state heritage (built) |
| Designated | 2 April 1999 |
| Reference no. | 503 |
| Type | Homestead building |
| Category | Residential buildings (private) |
Kurkulla is a heritage-listed residence and former boarding school at Evans Lane, Bowral, Wingecarribee Shire, New South Wales, Australia. It was built in the early 1880s. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.[1]
Kurkulla was constructed in the early 1880s for widow Lucy Berthon, who operated a boarding and day school at Marrickville. She reportedly intended to open a girls school in the Bowral house; however, this did not occur, and she instead moved to Nowra in 1891. Following Berthon's departure, English classical scholar J. Lee Pulling conducted a boarding school for boys at Kurkulla from 1891 until 1895 or 1897, with sources conflicting as to the date of its closure. Olympic swimmer and World War I casualty Cecil Healy was one of Pulling's pupils at Kurkulla.[2][3][4]
The property was regularly advertised for sale from 1903, and in 1909 it was purchased by Sydney merchant William Robert Evans, for his sister, Ada Evans. Both were keen gardeners and transformed it into a self-supporting farm.[1][4]
Ada Evans was born in England on 17 May 1872 and consequently the gardens in the immediate vicinity of the dwelling house have a beautiful and distinctly European flavour.[1]
By 1902 Ada Evans had become Australia's first woman to graduate from the law school at the University of Sydney, but after applying to the Full Court of the Supreme Court of New South Wales was refused admission to the bar, as the law at that time disqualified woman from holding a position. After a determined legal battle, culminating in the Women's Legal Status Act 1918 which was passed by the Holman state government, she became the first woman in New South Wales to qualify for admission to the bar but then had to be a student of law for two years. Finally on the 12 May 1921 she became the first woman to be admitted to the bar in New South Wales, opening up the legal profession here to females for the first time.[1]
The Australian Law Journal of 20 May 1948 described Evans' struggle to gain admittance to the bar as "heroic pioneering for women in the profession".[1]
Evans lived in Kurkulla from 1909 until her death in 1947 and undoubtedly considered it her home. Evans Lane in which the property stands is named in her honour.[5][1]
Following Evans' death, Kurkulla passed to her niece, Joan Kyngdon (1907-1997), who lived in the property until 1996.[2]
The property was restored prior to 2006 for then owners Dr. Louella and radiologist Tony Grattan-Smith by the architectural practice of Howard Tanner and Associates (now Tanner Kibble Denton), with a newly built self-contained studio adjacent to the homestead, an in-ground heated swimming pool and tennis court.[6][7][1]
The Grattan-Smiths sold it in 2006 to investment banker Peter Kennedy (for $4.375m). Kennedy sold it to neurologist Roger Tuck and his wife Leigh in 2011 for $4.25m, following the sale of their Gunning cattle farm Baroon in 2010. The Tucks put Kurkulla onto the real estate market in 2013 and 2014.[6][1] It sold for $3,775,000 in November 2015.[8]
