Vaucluse House

Vaucluse House is one of Sydney’s few 19th-century mansions still surrounded by its original gardens and wooded grounds. When the towering colonial explorer, barrister and politician William Charles Wentworth bought the house in 1827, it was a single-storey cottage in a secluded valley of partly cleared coastal scrub. In fits and starts over the next five decades, William and his wife Sarah developed Vaucluse into a large and picturesque estate. The grounds were extended and flourished to cover most of the present-day suburb of Vaucluse but the main house of the family’s dreams was left unfinished. In 1915 Vaucluse House became Australia’s first official house museum and continues to entice visitors to its lush and still secluded grounds. In 2015, Vaucluse House celebrated 100 years of being a museum.