Vaucluse House

Vaucluse House survives as one of Sydney's only nineteenth-century harbourside estates with the house, kitchen wing, stables and outbuildings and is still surrounded by ten hectares of formal gardens and grounds. Built in 1803, Vaucluse House was once owned by William Charles Wentworth, father of the Australian Constitution, his wife Sarah and their immediate family of 10 children who lived in the house from 1827 to 1853 and again in 1861 to 1862. This gothic-style mansion includes both lavish entertaining rooms and functional 'downstairs' areas. Vaucluse House paints a picture of the social aspirations and lifestyles of the Wentworth's; and of the servants both convict and free, who lived and worked there. The interiors include original Wentworth pieces together with furniture, furnishings and collections of the early to mid-nineteenth century.