A cup of tea on the balcony seemed the only appropriate way to contemplate the news that the current ACT lockdown has been extended for a further two weeks. Looking out over the CIT Reid campus, the steeple of St. John Anglican Church can be seen rising in the distance, which has always intrigued me - not the church, although it is certainly a quaint pre-Canberra landmark, but the distance. For approx. 200 metres north of my cup of tea, stands the central east gate of Glebe Park, Glebe House Gate, which opens onto Cooyong Street (known as Ballumbir Street until 2005). Standing at this gate looking east, you will find a six story nineties apartment complex across the road, slightly hidden behind a few large elms and a hedge running along the footpath. An opening in the hedge leads into an open circular area with a stone plinth in the centre, the plaque reads: “Here from 1875 to 1954 stood the Church of England rectory built on the 120 acre glebe provided by the Campbell family of Duntroon.” The rectory was designed by A. D. Soares and built between 1871-73, largely at the cost of George Campbell, though funds were also obtained by public subscription and from a week-long fete held in the gardens of Duntroon. The bricks were made from nearby swampland clay and fired onsite and the hardwood timber sourced from weetangera; all internal fittings were of cedar. In 1914, with the acquisition of land for the establishment of the Federal Capital, the building was also acquired and leased back to the church until 1926, when a new rectory was built on the grounds of St Johns. It was then used as temporary lodgings for St. Gabriels Girls School and the Church of England Girls Grammar, until the construction of Girls Grammar was completed in 1929. Afterwards it was leased to the McAlister family who ran it as a guest house, and named it “Glebe House''. By 1954 the house had become derelict and was declared unsafe and marked for demolition the following year.
Glebe House; The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Tuesday 12th March 1963, page 18. National Library of Australia.
