Three years ago Terry and Bec Knight fell in love with a piece of Maitland’s history transforming what was once known as “cockroach castle” into a city showpiece.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
With the hard renovation yards almost complete, the couple and their three children have taken to social media to learn more about the mystery house they believe has a real story to tell.
No. 67 Narang Street, East Maitland was dilapidated, parts of the building falling down around their ears, almost ready for the scrap heap.
Enter the Knight family from Scone who moved to Maitland to be closer to work.
Mr Knight is a registered nurse at John Hunter Hospital and Mrs Knight works at Woolworths Green Hills.
They share the house with their three children Chelsea, 18, Nicholas, 15, and Angie, 13.
To date, the family has learnt that the two-storey house was built in the early 1890s.
It is believed to have been built for Joseph Phillips, a road contractor.
Mr Knight also understands Mr Phillips’ 18-year-old daughter Eliza died in the house but is yet to find out her cause of death.
“I have found a few snippets about the house on the website Trove, which is a site containing old newspaper clippings,” Mr Knight said.
He found Mr Phillips’ obituary in the Maitland Mercury dated Wednesday, February 13, 1929.
“We have always loved old houses and we saw this advertised by chance in the paper.
“Now the renovations have taken hold we are interested in finding out more about its history, exactly when it was built and who built it,” Mr Knight said.
“I’ve got the original deeds and a whole pile of names, but I need to work through it and find out who played what role.”
He said the house had been bastardised over the years, with original fireplaces boarded up and the property divided into flats.
“There is a lot of cedar work still in the house which had been painted over. The timber floors are retrievable,” Mr Knight said.
“I believe it was turned into flats in the late 1950s and we want to restore it to its former glory.”
The Knights haven’t uncovered an attic or basement yet and are not sure if these rooms existed, but they did find a pile of bricks in the backyard believed to be the original laundry.
“We’d really love to find out what other attachments there were to the house,” Mr Knight said.
The family bought the property in December 2012 and moved in a few months later.
“It was quite derelict and took us about three months to clean the place up,” Mr Knight said.
It contains four bedrooms and a parlour that has been turned into a fifth bedroom.
“We believe that two of the bedrooms upstairs were once servants quarters,” he said.
“The family was quite well to do apparently. It’s the only big two-storey house in the street. When we looked at it we thought, ‘oh my God’ and then the second time we looked at it we looked past the crap and saw the house itself.”
That’s when the couple caught the renovation bug.
A new kitchen and bathroom were the first rooms to be revamped and a timber section that was falling off the back of the house was demolished and rebuilt.
“It’s a weekend hobby, a work in progress,” Mr Knight said.
Anyone who can help the Knights in their quest to learn more about the history of No. 67 Narang Street, can email Terry at terry.knight69@yahoo.com.
