Our History
The school hall that stands today at Eleven Eighty operated as the first school in the Shoalhaven Heads/Coolangatta region from 1883 – 1959, when a new school was built in Shoalhaven Heads. The school hall and the teacher’s residence were listed for heritage in 1985.
The Early Years
Establishment of Coolangatta School
While the school hall at Eleven Eighty was built in 1883, the history of this property as a school dates back to 1861 with the establishment of Coolangatta School. It was later to be renamed Shoalhaven Heads School before its final closure in 1959.
The school was originally established in 1861 by a group of parents, who were workers on the Coolangatta Estate, to provide education for their children. David Berry leased a building to to the parents who engaged the services of a Mr Samuel Watson as teacher. By todays standards Mr Watson did not have great credentials for this position. Besides being more literate than the parents who engaged him, he had no teaching experience or training in this field.
The policy in 1861 was for the government to pay a small salary to teachers in public schools which would be supplemented by modest school fees paid for by the parents. The idea was for schools to prove themselves before the government committed to putting money into them. Many other small schools opened at a similar time but were not successful enough to remain open. Coolangatta proved itself and was acknowledged as a government school on the 19th November 1861. By the end of that year the school had enrolments of 32 children with an average attendance of 25. In July 1982 the inspector of schools made his first inspection. He found little to be impressed with and criticised the standard of teaching and the state of the buildings. His only positive comment was that the children were clean!
A changing region
Enrolments and challenges
Over the years, attendance was a problem at the school, and remember part of the teacher’s salary depended on the number of children turning up each day. Whether it was weather conditions that prevented the children getting to school, or the expectation that the children needed to help with work at the Coolangatta Estate, attendance continued to be a major issue. We have in our possession the enrolment and attendance figures over the years. You can see the impact of major historical events such as the 1916 flu epidemic. In 1895 there had been over 70 pupils on the roll but by 1917 this had dropped to a mere 25. Another contributing factor was that at this time most of the children of the Coolangatta Estate workers had grown up and there was a decline in new families making the estate their home.
Conversely by the 1930’s the population of Shoalhaven Heads was on the rise as families from Sydney moved to this area because of the plentiful fishing allowing for a cheaper way of living through the depression years. By the 1930’s most of the pupils enrolled at the Coolangatta School lived in Shoalhaven Heads. They had to walk 5 miles across swampy ground to get there. The children were expected to attend with clean shoes. With most only owning one pair of shoes, they had to make this daily trek in bare feet with their shoes tied around their neck by the shoelaces.
Past meets present
The school buildings
Originally the school operated out of a “temporary building” described in 1862 by the school inspector as “an old cabbage tree building, out of repair, badly supplied with furniture and apparatus”. He stated that new buildings would soon be erected. It took nearly 20 years for this last statement to become true.
In late 1867 or early 1868, the teacher’s residence was erected and the stone foundations for the new schoolhouse laid. However, the new school building (the Old School Hall which stands today at Eleven Eighty) was not erected till 1883 when Sir John Hay, a cousin of Berry’s, took up residence as a manager of the Berry Estate. “It was a weatherboard structure on a stone foundation with a large school room 37 by 18 feet and a smaller room 18 by 12, which was sometimes used as a withdrawal room when visiting clergy came to give religious education to their flock. There was also a small porch area which was used for hats and bags”. (Unfortunately, the porch area is not standing today).
As the children attending school now came from Shoalhaven Heads, the school was renamed Shoalhaven Heads school in 1958. The distance children had to travel became a problem as the school began to grow and in 1959 a new school was built in Shoalhaven Heads and this chapter in Eleven Eighty’s history came to an end.
We have been lucky enough to retain many original items from the property’s time as a school. If this historical importance of the property interests you, you will find much to peruse on site including photos, original sports day flags and school memorabilia and of course the Old School Hall and Teachers residence. One of the many things that our guests love about the property is the character and stories that go with it.
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