Fairyland Pleasure Grounds

Swan Brothers

In 1888 the Swan Brothers - Henry Brisbane, James Brisbane and Robert Joshua Campbell Swan - were timber merchants and saw-millers in Balmain with a branch office in Gladesville. Robert Swan (1864-1943) managed the Gladesville Branch and sometime following his marriage to Margaret Jane Turner in 1887, lived in Eltham Street, Gladesville. He was also an auctioneer and estate agent and, from 1895 to 1900, an alderman on Ryde Municipal Council.

Land Purchases

When portions of the Field of Mars Common were offered for sale in 1896, Robert J C Swan and other members of the Swan family bought four portions with substantial frontage to the Lane Cove River. Portions 385 and 386 were destined to become Fairyland and comprised around 17 acres of flat land covered in ti-trees, paperbarks, swamp oaks and bracken ferns, with a small creek running across the site from the steeper land behind. Robert Swan had part of the land cleared and developed as a market garden, growing strawberries and watermelons. New Zealand flax was planted to provide ties for the strawberry punnets.

Picnickers and Tourist Boats ...

Picnickers and tourist boats began to stop to buy strawberries and were soon being offered afternoon tea with strawberries and cream. By 1905 the area had acquired a name, The Rest, and between 1905 and 1910 the market gardens were phased out and the area became dedicated to recreation.

Other picnic grounds existed on the river: Judy's Arm and The Quince Trees were further upstream. The Swan family, however, developed The Rest by planting soft fern, phoenix palms, pines, and other exotics. Equipment was brought from other parks - six boat-swings came from Putney Park and a razzle-dazzle, flying fox and ticket boxes came from the White City Pleasure Grounds at Rushcutters Bay. The Rest became Fairyland Pleasure Grounds, like Correy's Pleasure Garden and Dance Pavilion, The Avenue at Hunters Hill, and many others.

Many visitors to Fairyland came in groups from Sunday schools, tennis clubs, Lodges and workplaces. Firms like Gartrell White brought many hundreds of employees and reserved the entire grounds for the day. Firms and clubs organised sports programmes, including sprints, sack races, egg-and-spoon races and other picnic games like tug-o-war. Other diversions included cricket and dancing - the Fairyland management provided a broadcasting service for racing and dancing.

Boats & Cars

Charter boats, carrying up to 60 or 70 people, and rowboats, brought Fairyland's first visitors. Between 1908 and 1918 the Upper Lane Cove River Ferry Company ran a service from Fig Tree as far as Killara. Silting of the river was a constant problem and in 1913 the company complained that 'it is only at high tide that the launches can get above Swan's picnic grounds'. 

Launches were still running from Fig Tree to all wharves as far as Killara in 1923 but Fairyland had begun using its own boats and could run regular services when others were discontinued due to silting. Fairyland's boats were the Escort and the Twilight, both shallow single-deckers.

Rosman's began taking charter boats to Fairyland in 1914 and other charter companies also went there. The Kinninmonts had a boatshed at Fig Tree from which picnic groups could hire row boats and small launches. Around 1930 the Kinninmonts built a small jetty for their row boats at Fairyland.

Parties also came to Fairyland by car but parking at Fairyland was limited - when the ground was dry around 120 cars could be parked in the parking area.

Demise

The reliance on the river became significant after 1938 when the Lane Cove National Park was formed and incorporated much of the orchard area above Fuller's Bridge. A weir completed in that year blocked access to the upper river by boat and in 1939 the Epping Road bridge prevented larger boats from approaching Fairyland.

At the same time, World War II brought the immobilisation of private boats and petrol rationing. Other problems for Fairyland followed the end of the war - the river in the 1940s and 1950s was heavily polluted by industrial effluents; a series of floods in the late 1960s forced prolonged periods of closure for clean-up. The financial burdens became impossible for the remaining members of the Swan family and Fairyland was sold in 1977, becoming part of the Lane Cove River State Recreation Area in 1978.

[This information was extracted from a leaflet written by Megan Martin, former Local Studies Librarian with City of Ryde Libraries, in 1991, which drew on Katherine Perrin's Fairyland Pleasure Grounds on the Lane Cove River (1980) and the Swan Family Papers held in the Local Studies Collection at Ryde Library.]