Penniedarling

This is 'Barnstable Manor', it once stood on Rodd Point in the Drummoyne area, it was built by my Great Great Grandfather Brent Clements Rodd.
Brent arrived in Sydney in 1822,  he was just 13 years old and he came with his father and two older brothers from Barnstable in Devon.  When Brent grew up he became a Solicitor and bought land in the Drummoyne area.
This photo was taken in 1943 during WW2, that's Army Tents in the middle of the photo, Rodd Point and Rodd Island in the background.   If you look carefully, just where those tall trees are dividing the tents you can see the ruins of 'Barnstable Manor'.  Most of the land you can see once belonged to Brent but of course following ancestors were lazy didn't work the land and eventually everyone went broke.

The Manor was left to fall apart, see first photo.

Now the reason I'm so excited... My father remembers playing here as a kid and he remembers two old Aunts who lived in the falling down Manor... they were called Aunt Tiss and Aunt Puss!!!  He never knew why they were called that and he never knew their real names.

This is what Dad wrote many years ago...

"The house eventually became impossible to maintain so my Great Uncle Pop, Grandfathers brother, and his two sisters, Great Aunt Tiss and Great Aunt Puss bought the property 9 Napier Street, (which is now Flats) near 'Warrembah' (another Rodd family home on water at Drummoyne.)
Vandals eventually burnt the grand old Manor House down and the farm was broken up and sold as building allotments.
Great Uncle Pop (Burnell), I don't think he ever married, and his sisters were the last people to live in 'Barnstable Manor'.  I remember Great Uncle Pop as a bearded gent who never left his chair.  He had been the manager of the Bank of NSW Head Office.
My Great Aunts Tiss and Puss lived with him and a strange Irish Maid call Molly looked after them.  Tiss I think was married but Puss was single.  They always made me feel very welcome."

Dad often told us about Tiss and Puss and he also told us that he never knew their real names.

...  But I can...  Hurray for me!!  And other ancestor members Ancestry.

Tiss - Janet Editha Rodd, married with 5 children but her husband died in 1907 so she must have moved back home, her children were aged 27 to 20 so were grown up, Tiss died in 1943 aged 94.  So Puss must have been - Lenore Clovelly Rodd, she was the only unmarried Rodd of that time and died in 1952 aged 92.

Now if you look very closely at the first photo of  'Barnstable Manor' you will see there is a woman in white in the top window on the left and a woman in black in the middle upstairs window.  I'm thinking that it's Aunt Puss in the White, she never married so it must be Aunt Tiss in the Black because she is in mourning. 

Labels: Rodd