The Priory

Council is looking to restore The Priory and add additional amenities to the immediate precinct that broader Riverglade Reserve.

A Plan of Management (POM) has been developed.

This POM sets out how the reserve will be managed and cared for now and into the future.

One key elements of the POM is The Priory and immediate surrounds.

The Priory - A Brief History

In 1835 Thomas Stubbs purchased 2 allotments of land at Tarban Creek and proceeded to build a single-storey farmhouse. Stubbs, his wife, two servants, and a garden resided at ‘Longwood’ until 1847.

In 1847 Thomas Stubbs sold the house he had built at the head of Tarban Creek, the outbuildings and farm included, to the French religious order The Society of Mary (Marist Fathers), which would become their first base in Australia. The farm, buildings, and gardens provided rest and recuperation for their South Pacific missionaries. The Marist Fathers extended Stubb’s original sandstone farmhouse under the architect William Weaver and named the site ‘Villa Maria’.

In 1864 the Marist Fathers moved their order to the other side of Tarban Creek and transferred the title ‘Villa Maria’ to their new home. Thomas Salter purchased the original building, built on a gothic style, and renamed it ‘The Priory’. Under Salter’s tenure, the site included a shed, latrines, outhouse, tennis court, stables, poultry yard, cultivation paddock, and coach houses.

The Priory then became a building of institutional, medical, and social historic importance following its 1888 inclusion - lasting for over a century - into Gladesville Hospital, the earliest psychiatric hospital on the Australian mainland. The surrounding land was farmed by patients for the production of fruit and vegetables for hospital use, and in WWII an air raid shelter for patients and staff was cut into the terrace.