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One of Australia\u2019s earliest heritage rules is the reason you\u2019ll never see suburbia from the Lanyon Homestead\u2019s verandah. Photo: Dom Northcott.<\/p>\n
Ever look at a map of the ACT and wonder why we\u2019re worried about running out of land? South of Tuggeranong\u2019s deepest suburbs \u2013 Gordon and Banks \u2013 there\u2019s a vast green stretch running all the way to Tharwa and beyond. Ripe for development, you could assume.<\/p>\n
In fact, planners once assumed exactly that. But one historic property stopped Canberra\u2019s southern expansion in its tracks: Lanyon Homestead.<\/p>\n
And thanks to a series of decisions made more than 50 years ago, it\u2019s the reason Tuggeranong will never creep further south.<\/p>\n
From the front verandah of Lanyon Homestead, there are no rooftops, no cul-de-sacs, no modern suburbs. Just rolling paddocks, the Murrumbidgee River corridor and Mount Tennant rising in the distance.<\/p>\n
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The view from the Lanyon Homestead\u2019s gardens. Photo: Dom Northcott.<\/p>\n
According to ACT Galleries, Museums and Heritage director Anna Wong, that uninterrupted view is no accident.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou will never be able to see a modern house from the front veranda of Lanyon,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
That promise, made in the 1970s, still shapes Canberra today.<\/p>\n
When Canberra was chosen as Australia\u2019s federal capital in the early 1900s, large swathes of land were resumed by the Commonwealth. Major estates such as Duntroon, Ginninderra and Tuggeranong Homestead were absorbed into the new city.<\/p>\n
But Lanyon Homestead, despite being owned by the same Cunningham family as Tuggeranong Homestead, was not.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo most of central Canberra that we see today was part of the Duntroon estate,\u201d Dr Wong explains.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that stage, it didn\u2019t include Lanyon Homestead.\u201d<\/p>\n
For decades, Lanyon remained a working rural property on the city\u2019s fringe. That changed after World War II, when Canberra\u2019s population began to boom.<\/p>\n
From the 1950s and 60s, the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) was tasked with expanding Canberra under its now famous \u201cY Plan\u201d \u2013 creating satellite town centres such as Woden, Belconnen and Tuggeranong.<\/p>\n
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A map showing Lanyon Homestead\u2019s relation to the southern-most suburbs of Gordon and Banks. Image: Screenshot, Google Maps.<\/p>\n
By the 1970s, attention turned south.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the 1970s, Lanyon Homestead was the largest privately owned estate left in Canberra,\u201d Dr Wong says.<\/p>\n
At the time, it was owned by the Field family, who had purchased the property in 1930. The Federal Government began negotiations to acquire the land, with an eye to subdivision and a brand-new suburb.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when things stalled.<\/p>\n
The government offered compensation based on \u201cland only value\u201d, excluding the homestead and improvements. The Fields disagreed, arguing the land should be valued for its \u201cfuture development potential\u201d.<\/p>\n
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Dr Anna Wong at the Lanyon Homestead gardens. Photo: Dom Northcott.<\/p>\n
The dispute went as far as the Supreme Court and while it dragged on, another battle was brewing.<\/p>\n
Amid fears Lanyon could be demolished or swallowed by suburbia, the National Trust stepped in, placing the property on its heritage register.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all happening at the same time,\u201d Dr Wong says.<\/p>\n
Then, in 1974, Australia elected the Whitlam government \u2013 a turning point for heritage protection nationwide.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrior to Whitlam, there was no legal heritage protection framework in Australia,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Under Whitlam, the Australian Heritage Commission was established and heritage conservation became a national priority. Key to Lanyon\u2019s survival was lobbying from heritage advocates, including ANU landscape architect Professor Ken Taylor.<\/p>\n
Ken Taylor famously brought federal minister Tom Uren to Lanyon, standing with him on the homestead\u2019s verandah to explain the importance of \u201ccurtilage\u201d \u2013 the surrounding landscape that gives a heritage place its meaning.<\/p>\n
It was then Uren delivered the now immortal edict: \u201cYou will never be able to see a modern house from the front verandah of Lanyon\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that was really the beginning of saving the land and homestead as a rural property,\u201d Dr Wong says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a really pivotal moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Lanyon Homestead is open to the public from Wednesday to Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm. Photo: Michelle Kroll.<\/p>\n
Not long after, the idea of the \u201cLanyon Bowl\u201d took shape. Formally declared later under the Hawke government, it protected about 5000 ha of land stretching from southern Tuggeranong to Mount Tennant, bounded by the Murrumbidgee River and surrounding hills.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really protected the visual and landscape integrity of that whole area,\u201d Dr Wong says.<\/p>\n
The result is one of the most intact cultural landscapes in Australia and a hard southern boundary for Canberra\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has led to Lanyon still being one of the most well preserved, holistic cultural landscapes that we have in Australia,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
That preservation was underscored earlier this year with the acquisition of an 1832 painting by colonial surveyor Robert Hoddle.<\/p>\n
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Robert Hoddle, Mount Tennant, on the Murrumbidgee River, the resort of a notorious bushranger, New South Wales, 1832, Canberra Museum and Gallery.<\/p>\n
Titled Mount Tennant, on the Murrumbidgee River, the work is believed to have been painted from the site of Lanyon Homestead itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re 99 per cent sure that it was painted from the current site of Lanyon Homestead,\u201d Dr Wong says.<\/p>\n
And nearly two centuries later, the view remains strikingly similar. And always will. Because while Canberra might continue to grow up and out, it will face a hard time getting past Lanyon\u2019s front gate.<\/p>\n