Wahroonga, New South Wales

Wahroonga is a suburb in the Upper North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, 18 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of Ku-ring-gai Council and Hornsby Shire. North Wahroonga is an adjacent separate suburb of the same postcode.

History
Wahroonga is an Aboriginal word meaning our home, likely originating from the Kuringgai language group. Early British colonists of New South Wales utilized the area for its tall trees. Wahroonga was first colonised by the British in 1822 by Thomas Hyndes, a convict who later became a wealthy landowner.

Hyndes's land was later acquired by John Brown, a merchant and timber-getter. After Brown had cleared the land of timber, he planted orchards. Later, Ada, Lucinda and Roland Avenues were named after three of his children. His name is in Browns Road, Browns Field and Browns Waterhole on the Lane Cove River. The last member of the Brown family was Gertrude Mary Appleton, who died in 2008 at the age of ninety-three. She is buried in the cemetery of St John the Baptist Church, Gordon.

After the North Shore railway line was opened in 1890 it became a popular place for wealthy businessmen to build out-of-town residences with large gardens. Wahroonga Post Office opened on 15 October 1896. Much of this development occurred in the 1920s and 1930s.

Today, Wahroonga exists primarily as a garden suburb. Its tree-lined streets retain much of its state-heritage historic houses in styles of residential architecture.

Housing
Wahroonga is known for its tree-lined, shady streets and well maintained gardens. Notable streets include Water Street, Burns Road, Iloura Avenue and Billyard Avenue.

Heritage listings
Wahroonga has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:
 * 9 Highlands Avenue: Highlands
 * 62 Boundary Road: Jack House, Wahroonga
 * 69–71 Clissold Road: Rose Seidler House
 * 61–65 Coonanbarra Road: St John's Uniting Church, Wahroonga
 * 16 Fox Valley Road: Purulia, Wahroonga
 * 69 Junction Road: Evatt House
 * North Shore railway: Wahroonga railway station
 * 1526 Pacific Highway: Mahratta, Wahroonga
 * 1678 Pacific Highway and Woonona Avenue: Wahroonga Reservoir
 * 23 Roland Avenue: Simpson-Lee House I
 * 14 Woonona Avenue: The Briars, Wahroonga

Highlands, in Highlands Avenue, is a timber house designed by John Horbury Hunt and built in 1891 for Alfred Hordern. Hunt was a Canadian architect who used the Arts and Crafts style and the Shingle Style popular in North America. Highlands is listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register and was listed on the (now defunct) Register of the National Estate.

Architect William Hardy Wilson designed and built his own home, Purulia, on Fox Valley Road. Built in 1913, the home is in the Colonial Revival style and became, according to some observers, a prototype for North Shore homes. It is listed on the Register of the National Estate.

Berith Park, in Billyard Avenue, was designed by F. Ernest Stowe for Alfred Smith, who bought the land in 1897. The house was finished circa 1909.

Westholme, in Water Street, was designed by Howard Joseland in the Arts and Crafts style for John Bennett, one of the pioneer developers of Wahroonga. Bennett came from England but migrated to Australia with his wife and acquired property at Wahroonga in 1893. Westholme was built in 1894. Another house was added at the other end of the block, but this was demolished in 1991 after changing hands several times.

The Gatehouse, in Water Street, was originally part of the John Williams Hospital. The hospital also includes the Federation mansion Rippon Grange, designed by Howard Joseland. The Gatehouse is listed on the local government heritage register.

Craignairn, at the corner of Burns Road and Cleveland Street, was also designed in the Arts and Crafts style by Howard Joseland. The client was Walter Strang.

Joseland also built his own home Malvern two doors away from the Strang home in Burns Road. An example of the Federation Bungalow style, it has been described as "unpretentious and solidly comfortable." Between Craignairn and Malvern in Burns Road, Joseland also built Coolabah, another fine Federation Bungalow example.

The Briars, in Woonona Avenue, is built on land that was granted to John Hughes in 1842, and later divided into four estates. Jessie Edith Balcombe built The Briars on one of these estates in 1895. It is listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register. 'The Briars' is connected to Napoleon Bonaparte; the house having been built for a grandson of the East India Company Agent who hosted Napoleon at the start of his exile. The house possesses some architectural similarities, and shares its name, with the building on St Helena.

The Rose Seidler House, in Clissold Road, built by Harry Seidler between 1948 and 1950, was one of the first examples of modern residential architecture in Australia.

Commercial areas
The main shopping and commercial area is the Wahroonga Village located adjacent to the west side of the railway station. It has a variety of stores including several cafes, restaurants, health stores and boutiques as well as an IGA supermarket.

The smaller commercial centres are the Hampden Avenue shopping strip in east Wahroonga, and Fox Valley Shopping Centre on Fox Valley Road in south west Wahroonga.

There is also a commercial area at the intersection of Fox Valley Road and The Comenarra Parkway which contains the Sydney Adventist Hospital, Globalstar's Australian office, and the offices of the South Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventists.

Transport
Wahroonga railway station is on the North Shore railway line, with frequent Sydney Trains services to Central and Hornsby.

Wahroonga is the Sydney end of the M1 Motorway to Newcastle. The Pacific Highway connects Wahroonga by road with the rest of the North Shore and Pennant Hills Road's northern end begins in Wahroonga and intersects the M1 Motorway at Pearce's Corner. The Comenarra Parkway is a minor arterial road that stretches from Thornleigh to West Pymble via Wahroonga and South Turramurra. Wahroonga is also the northern end of the NorthConnex motorway tunnel.

CDC NSW's Upper North Shore services provide sporadic bus services to parts of Wahroonga such as the 576 to Turramurra Station.

Parks
Wahroonga Park is located to the north-east of the railway station, and features a significant number of well established introduced trees, a rose garden and a children's playground. The Glade, located near Abbotsleigh, has an oval, two tennis courts, a half basketball court and cricket nets. There is also a small Blue Gum High Forest, next to the tennis courts. Browns Field is a small sporting oval, formerly a historic logging area. Sir Robert Menzies Park is a small park located within Fox Valley.

Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park is located north of Wahroonga. It is the second oldest national park in Australia and is very popular, offering many walking tracks, picnic spots and Aboriginal sites with rock carvings. The park has a large proportion of the known Aboriginal sites in the Sydney area.

Schools
Primary:
 * Wahroonga Public School
 * Waitara Public School
 * Prouille Catholic Primary School
 * Wahroonga Preparatory School
 * St Lucy's School for children with disabilities

Secondary:
 * St Leo's Catholic College
 * St Edmund's School for students with vision impairment and other special needs

K–12:
 * Knox Grammar School
 * Abbotsleigh School for Girls
 * Wahroonga Adventist School

Demographics
According to the, there were 17,853 residents in Wahroonga. 59.3% of people were born in Australia, the most common other countries of birth were China (excluding Special Administrative Regions and Taiwan) 8.2%, England 4.9%, India 2.9%, South Africa 2.6% and Hong Kong 1.9%. 67.9% of people only spoke English at home, other languages spoken at home included Mandarin (10.2%), Cantonese (3.5%), Korean (1.8%), Hindi (1.4%) and Perisan (1.3%). The most common responses for religion in Wahroonga were No Religion 35.5%, Catholic 19.5%, Anglican 16.4% and Uniting Church 3.7%; a further 4.5% of respondents elected not to disclose their religion.

Notable residents

 * Halse Rogers Arnott, medical practitioner, company director and former chairman of Arnott's, lived on Burns Road
 * Dorothy ('Dot') Butler, bushwalker, mountaineer, and conservationist, lived on Boundary Road
 * David Campese, former Wallaby
 * Grace Cossington Smith, Australian artist and pioneer of modernist painting, attended Abbotsleigh School
 * Clive Evatt, politician and barrister
 * Nicholas Fitzgerald, football (soccer) player for the Brisbane Roar
 * Martin Flood, Australian quiz champion
 * Adam Garcia, actor
 * Peter Garrett, frontman of 1980s band Midnight Oil and Member of the Australian House of Representatives for Kingsford Smith from 2004 to 2013 was born and raised here.
 * Mel Gibson, actor, was educated by members of the Congregation of Christian Brothers at St Leo's Catholic College during his high school years
 * Stuart Inder, journalist, editor and specialist in Pacific Islands affairs
 * Hugh Jackman, actor
 * Howard Joseland, architect, responsible for many of Wahroonga's finest early homes
 * Richard Makinson, physicist
 * Ollie McGill, keyboardist and backing vocalist for The Cat Empire
 * Ellyse Perry, Australian dual-international footballer and cricketer
 * Jacob Preston, rugby league player
 * Deborah Schofield, director of the Centre for Economic Impacts of Genomic Medicine, Macquarie University
 * Natalie Tobin, association footballer player for Sydney FC
 * John Toohey, founder of Tooheys Brewery and politician, lived at Innisfail, now part of Knox Grammar School
 * William Hardy Wilson, architect, artist and author
 * William Windeyer, justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and decorated soldier
 * Harry Wolstenholme, lawyer and amateur ornithologist lived in Wahroonga
 * Matt Kean, Member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing the neighbouring district of Hornsby.