The Priory

The Priory has had a number of transformations throughout its 135 year history. Starting life as a stone cottage on Thomas Stubbs’s first Eastern Farm grant in 1835, the land was acquired by the Marist Fathers in the mid 1850s as a base for their missionaries in the South Pacific. The Fathers extended the cottage, adding a new Colonial Regency front facing the Tarban Creek, designed by William Weaver. After they moved to new premises on the opposite side of the Creek, the property was finally purchased by Thomas Salter in 1874. Farming activities continued and Salter added an L-shaped picturesque gothic wing at the rear of the house. In 1888 when he moved to Brynault, the Priory became part of the Gladesville Mental Hospital, the first building on the Riverglade Campus, north of Victoria Road. The surrounding land was farmed by patients for fruit and vegetables for the hospital’s use, with the area of arable land extended by reclamation work along Tarban Creek.

The first threats to the site came in the 1990s when the land surrounding the Priory was sold for residential development following the decision by Gladesville Hospital to close the Riverglade Campus. The Priory was isolated from its curtilage and, when the hospital ceased using it for medical functions, the building was also under threat. After prolonged community action by a number of community groups, including the Hunters Hill Trust and the Friends of Gladesville Hospital, the Priory was finally secured in public ownership with its transfer to Hunters Hill Council in 2006. The Council is obliged to conserve the property and develop appropriate uses for the remaining portion of the site, but Council’s plans for its future have not been finalised yet.