Bayview

Top   Memories   Reading   Further Reading

Bayview is bounded by Ingleside to the west, where it rises to Bayview Heights, and Mona Vale to the south and east. This area was named for its outlook onto Pittwater, and was officially recognised when Bayview Post Office was opened in 1882, run by the Collins family.

By 1821 land had been granted here, 200 acres to Robert McIntosh and 80 acres each to Peter Patullo and Jeremiah Bryant. During the nineteenth century several small farms, producing fruit vegetables and poultry, developed along this sheltered north-facing shore.

Bayview became a holiday destination when the coach service from Manly extended there in the 1880s. It was also reached by boat from Sydney. Visitors stayed in guesthouses. During the second half of the twentieth century Bayview became a residential suburb.

Bayview has some very fine Spotted Gum trees, eucalyptus maculata, which are a special feature of the Pittwater area.

Memories

Top   Memories   Reading   Further Reading

Samuel Morrison travels to Bayview in 1884

"I was appointed teacher at Pittwater Public School on 1st May, 1884. The coach which was run by W. Boulton, Newport, was timed to leave Bagnall’s Hotel, The Corso, Manly at 4 pm on Sunday for Newport. The men employed at Von Beren’s Powder Works were returning by that coach which collected passengers at the livery stable behind the Steyne Hotel and although the driver had promised to pick me up, he went off as soon as the coach was crowded, thus leaving me no alternative but to walk to Pittwater – a distance of thirteen miles.

After passing the Manly Lagoon, I met no one, and passed only two houses that were occupied – Mrs Malcolm’s at Brookvale and Miss Jenkins at Collaroy. On nearing Narrabeen Lagoon I was overtaken by a man in a spring cart, whom I stopped to make inquiries as to the whereabouts of Pittwater. He told me that he was going that way and would give me a lift. This man was Johnny Collins, an old identity of the district, who kept a boarding house at Newport where Miss Scott now caters for the public.

Next morning Mr Collins rowed me over the Bay, and landed me where Bayview Wharf now stands. I had a walk of one and a half miles to Church Point, where the school was held in the little wooden church."

Samuel Morrison "Early Pittwater Reminiscences" Manly, Warringah & Pittwater Historical Society, 16th May 1929.

"Mr Samuel Morrison was appointed Teacher at the Pittwater Public School on 1st May, 1884. It was started in the little weatherboard church at Church Point, and was the only school in the district. In 1888 a brick school was erected on an acre block dedicated as a school site on 25th February, 1887, and was known as the Pittwater Public School. A residence was also built for the teacher.

The name of Pittwater School was changed to Bay View School in 1892. Mr Morrison was the only teacher in the Pittwater School, and he occupied the residence for 20 years and all his family were born there. We pay a high tribute to him whose task was to lay the foundation of education in the hearts and minds of the young generations of Pittwater.

…The Bay View school was closed in July 1906 and the pupils were transferred to Mona Vale school, which opened in temporary premises belonging to Mr. Stringer. The present school was erected by Mr J. Booth in 1911."

P W Gledhill, "Manly and Pittwater", 1946.

Reading

Top   Memories   Reading   Further Reading

Coach trip from Manly to Pittwater at the end of the nineteenth century.

"A trip to Church Point, Pittwater, in the old days, prior to the advent of tram and motor car, was made by means of the coach running from Manly. Many a traveller by that old fashioned means of transport was able to study and enjoy the trip of thirteen miles perhaps far more than one who makes the journey now by more modern and speedier methods. The large Royal Mail coach which commenced its journey from the livery stables next door to the old Pier Hotel, Manly, was put into service when a crowd was travelling on holidays. With its two box seats and five horses it was a ‘thing of beauty’ and there were usually among the occupants one or two bright spirits who enlivened the journey with their joviality. On the way down there was usually a break of a few minutes for refreshments at the Narrabeen and Rock Lily Inns.

When I first went to Bayview in 1898, the coach used to leave from the stables next to the Pier Hotel (Manly). The coach fare to Church Point and Bayview was one shilling and sixpence.

…It is noteworthy that Prince Albert Victor and Prince George (late King George V) travelled along this road in a coach-wagonette to Newport on the morning of August I, 1881.

…So jaded were the horses at the holiday season that it was sometimes necessary for travellers to get out of the coach at steep grades and help push it up hills. This happened at Sheep Station Hill, beyond Narrabeen. Sixty years ago there was no road across the Narrabeen Lakes: it was forded in the shallows, near the present bridge."

JSN Wheeler, 1941.

Further Reading

Top   Memories   Reading   Further Reading

Joan Lawrence, Pittwater Paradise, 1994, Pittwater Pictorial History, 2006.
General history.

J Macken, Martin Burke, the Father of Pittwater, 1994
Settlement in first part of nineteenth century.

JSN Wheeler, "Early Days of Bayview and Church Point" Journal of Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol.26, 1941.
Events and families.

Maybanke Anderson’s Story of Pittwater 1770-1920, edited by Jan Roberts, 1996.
Maybanke stayed at Bayview from 1901.

Bayview. Links with a past, Bayview Golf Club, 1998.
History of the land which eventually became a golf course.