Nightly rates from $900
(3 night minimum)
MISTER THOMAS BROOKS (1832-1902)
Thomas Brooks was born on the Isle of White and grew up in the shipping industry. He completed his shipbuilding apprenticeship at Royal Navy Base Dockyard, Plymouth, England and went to sea as a shipwright. During the 1850’s he was the sole survivor of a shipwreck in the Indian Ocean, and after his rescue settled in Newcastle, NSW Australia.
Here, Mister Brooks forged a career as a successful shipbuilder, and then a shipowner trading to China and inter-colonial ports around the world. He was a director of the Newcastle Steamship Company and of the Newcastle County Building Society, a member of the Marine Board of Newcastle and a Lloyd’s Accredited Marine Surveyor. He also had local coal mining interests and financially backed the Newcastle School of Arts. In 1882, he was elected to Mayor of Newcastle.
Mister Brooks resided in his grand home at 23 Brown Street from completion in the 1870’s, until 1901 when it was sold to Henry Raysmith. Thomas Brooks died the following year, aged 70 years.
THE HOME
Built for John Goodsir and Thomas Brooks in 1877, when 21 and 23 Brown Street were constructed as an identical pair of Victorian Gothic houses designed by architect James Henderson (1835 – 1902).
Henderson was noteworthy in Newcastle’s development in late 19th century, for hotels, such as The Grand, and its companion terrace housing in Church and Watt Streets, and the fashionable Victoria Theatre’s rebuild after fire in 1891. Henderson’s buildings were often distinguished by perimeter stone or brick walls, as at Woodlands in Church Street, and beautiful, patterned brick pavements as in Brown Street.
Originally designed with four attic rooms above 8 main rooms on ground and first floors, these two Brown Street Gothic villas were constructed of double sandstone brick, with stucco finishes to present as stone on the façade and with distinctive ornate barge boards. Additional verandahs and balconies offered protected, additional living spaces, front and rear, to enjoy the expansive position, nestled in the verdant and terraced hillside of inner-city Newcastle.
TODAY
Mister Brooks on Brown is an elevated, contemporary, and eclectic home with that has been magnificently reimagined for the 21st Century by Prue & Andrew Swain. As custodians of this grand home, protectors of its legacy, and authors of its next chapter, the Swain’s have brought modern history to life at 23 Brown Street.
