A“NOBEL” Place: “Dogwoods”,“Sarsaparilla”, and Patrick White’s Castle Hill

Warrnambool and District Historical Society Inc., Warrnambool. It was founded in 1882 and operated two ships, the Casino and the Bellinger, servicing the Western Ports between Melbourne and Portland. The Casino was wrecked at Apollo Bay in 1932. Later the company operated the ship, Dawn and survived as a shipping company until the late 1930s. Casino and District Historical Society, Casino, New South Wales. Nonprofit Organization.

A HOUSE WITH CHARACTERS:

A LITERARY CONNECTION TO LOCAL HISTORY

“All the houses I have lived in have beenrenovated and refurnished to accommodate fictions.The original structure is there for anybodywho knows: ‘Lulworth’ for Voss;‘Dogwoods’ for The Tree of Man and The Solid Mandala . . . In some cases ithas not been so much architecture as atmosphere which has transferred the houseto the page.”[i]

- From Patrick White’sautobiography, Flaws in the Glass.

Artist rendering of “Dogwoods”circa. 1994.Image reproduced courtesyof the Rowlandson family.

In the middle of the suburban landscape ofCastle Hill, on one of its busiest roads, stands a house that is driven by (andprobably admired) thousands of times each day; however, few residents of theHills District know that this house, known as “Dogwoods”, was once owned andlived in by Nobel Prize-winning Australian author Patrick White.

Patrick White, Australia’s first recipient ofthe Nobel Prize for Literature (1973) for his novel Voss, and his life-long partner Manoly Lascaris, purchased the 6.4acres of property in February of 1948.Then called “The Glen”, the couple changed the name within the year to“Dogwoods”, named so after the Dogwood trees they planted on the property. White had left Sydney for Cambridge in 1932and “expected never to return.”[ii](Marr, Letters, p.6)

Patrick White.
Dogwood tree. Casino

Unfortunately, none of those planted by White remain on the property.

But return he did.

Interestingly, though, Patrick White’s timeat Castle Hill is relatively unknown when compared to his writing life ingeneral and his time at his family home in Centennial Park, in which he andManoly resided after leaving Castle Hill in 1964. (The couple would hold ontothe property for three more years.)

“Dogwoods” has been privately owned and,therefore, not open to the public, since White sold the property in 1967. Andin a way, the fact that the historical significance of the house, situatedwithin a suburban area, is relatively unknown,only adds to its intrigue.

Anybody whose literary interests in PatrickWhite fuels a need for more, and is aware of the author’s connection to CastleHill, cannot be dissatisfied when viewing first-hand the house in which many ofWhite’s characters were not only created but lived and breathed.

“Dogwoods” as it exists today.

A heritage-listed building, it stillmaintains its original character.

“. . . before very long [the Brown family]were living really and truly on the land they bought . . . down TerminusRoad.First, of course, there was thehouse to build, and they used to come out from Barranugli on Sundays tosupervise the building . . . the classical façade of the brown weatherboardhouse . . . something about the Classical which Dad called ‘sacrosanct – in amanner of speaking.”[iii]

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- From The Solid Mandala.

One can certainly perceive both thearchitecture and the atmosphere of “Dogwoods” within this brief description ofthe Brown family house in The SolidMandala.A resident of Castle Hillneed only pick up a copy of the novel to get a feeling of the place soengrained in it.

Of course, being able to physically locatesuch an important Australian literary figure (and characters) within anexisting physical structure is exciting and posits a significant historicallandmark within Castle Hill. However, what is just as interesting is what canbe learnt about Patrick White’s Castle Hill – the sense of place, its residents,and its link to today’s social and political environment – when looked atthrough this literary perspective.

A “NOBEL” PLACE

Castle Hill and its surrounding areas(then considered the Baulkham Hills Shire), during White’s residence, wassemi-rural, with only about 10,600 residents but was quickly growing.In just over ten years it grew to almost17,000.Today it has over 133,000 withthe suburb of Castle Hill aloneboasting of approximately 28,000 residents.[iv]This “suburbanization” of Castle Hill became,arguably, an important factor to White’s writing and his life.

“Our acres are just beginning to come alive . . . I am sure Ihave been right in returning to the land.'

- PatrickWhite, Aug 6, 1948

“I realize I have never liked Castle Hill, only thisplace [“Dogwoods”], which has been good to my work and necessary for it.”

- Patrick White, Sept 13, 1964

White’s relationship with Castle Hill wasobviously somewhat ambivalent.The abovetwo quotes from the year White arrived in Castle Hill and the year he left,respectively, show how, for White, Castle Hill was a place of isolation,necessity and inspiration.[v]Two of the place-names White affixes to hisfictional rendering of Castle Hill, or “Sarsaparilla”, as seen in the abovepassage from the novel The Solid Mandala,are particularly illustrative of this relationship.

The Solid Mandala,

originally published in 1966,written

predominantly during the lastyear of

White’s residence at“Dogwoods” in Castle Hill.

White’s choice of the place-namesBarranugli (Bare and Ugly) and Terminus Road (as a final point, as farout as one can be) at least help us to understand the anxieties White heldabout the place that, ultimately, gave him so much.These descriptions were not an attack onCastle Hill; rather, they were a bemoaning over the encroachment of suburbia onthe rural.As White wrote about havingto leave “Dogwoods”: “it was impossible to continue living in what had become asuburb.”

Showground Road in CastleHill as it looked 1951,

three years after White andLascaris purchased “Dogwoods”.

However, there is no denying White’sappreciation of Castle Hill as a place of literary inspiration andpeacefulness, away from the distractions of noisy city life. “The idealAustralia I visualized during any exile and which drew me back, was always, Irealize, a landscape without figures . . . [the landscape is] more sensual,sympathetic to human flesh.”[vi]Theordinariness of life with which Castle Hill was able to provide White wascrucial to his creativity, as Australian-ness and the Australian landscapebecame one of White’s most popular motifs.

Minnesota Historical Society

Postcard sent from White andLascaris to their neighbours, whose cow

spent some time in the couple’sbackyard at “Dogwoods”.

Image reproduced courtesy ofEnid Turbit.

Casino District Historical Society Inc