Series 01 Part 02: Hughes family correspondence, 3 April 1917-22 September 1918 - Page 234
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[Page 234]
5.
get this letter.
Cranbrook was sold yesterday. The house with five acres of land went for £20,000 to the trustees of the Church of England Grammar School, who are going to have two schools apparently, one at North Sydney, & one here. We are glad the house will be used for some decent purpose, & won't be turned into flats, or into an asylum of some sort. The rest of the land sold very well at prices ranging from £33 per foot to £12 per foot.
The highest price was paid for the two allotments (19 & 20) next our place. Esmé Friend, who married one of the Clifts, bought them for £7161, & is going to build a house for himself on them. The price was a stiff one, but I am awfully pleased because it ought to frighten off the Government or the Woollahra Council from tinkering at the resumption of our place, as of course our compensation would be largely based on the price paid at public auction for the adjoining land. Five lots (14 to 18) were not sold, as the Government had not yet filled the lower parts up level with the road as they had promised to do, & buyers were shy in bidding till they knew what they were going to get. The total sales were £53,651, with about 500 feet frontage to the main road yet to be sold, so that the Government ought to be very well satisfied at the result.
I have no more news I can think of, & must stop & hunt Mother to bed. Every happiness to you in the New Year, Geoffrey dear, & heaps of love from
You loving father
Thomas Hughes.