Woodhall

It was an unoccupied deceased estate when it was photographed in October 1989 and had been the home of a retired shipwright named Alexander Killin who died in August 1987, aged 82. Killin was a bachelor who had lived in Woodhall most of his life. He was born in Scotland and came to Sydney as a child with his family, including six siblings as well as his parents. His father, also named Alexander Killin, bought the land on which Woodhall was built around 1915 following the 1913 Boronia Park subdivision of Section 8 of the Field of Mars Common.

The house, a four-roomed timber cottage with an attached kitchen, was probably a pre-fabricated Hudson “ready-cut” house, erected by Killin senior who was a carpenter and shipwright. Killin built some of the furniture in the house and may also have been responsible for the internal joinery, including the timber mantels and the timber panelled walls in the hallway and dining room. The ceilings and walls in the other rooms were painted and battened asbestos-cement sheeting. Alexander Killin senior died in 1960 and his widow Janet died in 1963. The interior furnishings remained largely unaltered until Alexander junior’s death.

Photographer: James Whitelock

Date Photographed: October 1989

Original image format: 35mm mounted slides

Copyright: Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Photograph © James Whitelock

Further reading: “No.36 Farnell Street: a “battler” bungalow of the 1920s” in Hunter’s Hill Trust Journal February 1990 p.4