Photography by Simon Griffiths.
As a young boy Leo Schofield often passed Sydney's Bronte House while travelling to the beach and wondered what lay beyond the tall fence and dense vegetation. Fifty years later he signed a lease that carried with it responsibility for maintaining the house and garden.
Both were in a debilitated state, but Leo's passion for restoration and his obsession with gardening have helped give this unique environment new life. The garden at Bronte is now a kind of small-scale botanical garden, a repository for rare and beautiful plants.
Bronte House is one of Australia's most picturesque surviving colonial residences and dates back to 1845. Built in the "Gothic" taste so fashionable in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, it is a perfect example of the cottage orne, not a mansion but a romantic retreat from more formal city life. Both house and garden are open to the public six days a year and attract over 10,000 visitors.
