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Pierre Close
About
StreetPierre CloseSuburbMount ColahDetails"Pierre Close is a very busy thoroughfare these days, with parents driving up and down to deposit and collect school children from Mt Colah Primary School, people attending the Scout Hall, all kinds of classes being held at the Community Hall, and every weekend church services at the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Boys practice cricket at the nets in the school, so there is much activity day and night with passengers from the railway station.
When I moved to Mt Colah 40 years ago it was very different. One walked to the station with bush along the railway line side, ferns and wildflowers were along the school side and trees and bush grew. The occasional shoot of asparagus fern to be seen was left over from Pierre's asparagus farm which used to be where the school was built. At the end of the Close were a group of gum trees, about five, in the centre of the road, where local artist Grace Middlemas used to take groups of students for art lessons. Regrettably the Council cut these trees down. They were a hazard to car drivers - such a pity so much has to be sacrificed for car traffic. The little timber Scout Hall was burnt down and a new brick building was built to replace it. So Pierre Close is quite a centre of the social activity of Mt Colah. Till the day she died, old Mrs Pierre was adamant that her family did not receive proper compensation for the property from the Education Department. The family name lives on in the naming of the Close and shoots of asparagus fern peeping through the grass reminds us of why it was so named." Daphne Smith, 1997.SourceDaphne SmithMap[1]
When I moved to Mt Colah 40 years ago it was very different. One walked to the station with bush along the railway line side, ferns and wildflowers were along the school side and trees and bush grew. The occasional shoot of asparagus fern to be seen was left over from Pierre's asparagus farm which used to be where the school was built. At the end of the Close were a group of gum trees, about five, in the centre of the road, where local artist Grace Middlemas used to take groups of students for art lessons. Regrettably the Council cut these trees down. They were a hazard to car drivers - such a pity so much has to be sacrificed for car traffic. The little timber Scout Hall was burnt down and a new brick building was built to replace it. So Pierre Close is quite a centre of the social activity of Mt Colah. Till the day she died, old Mrs Pierre was adamant that her family did not receive proper compensation for the property from the Education Department. The family name lives on in the naming of the Close and shoots of asparagus fern peeping through the grass reminds us of why it was so named." Daphne Smith, 1997.SourceDaphne SmithMap[1]
Pierre Close. Hornsby Shire, accessed 13/09/2024, https://hornsbyshire.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/6389