Description
This tree is a Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla), located within the front garden of the ‘Adereham Hall’ apartment building. This tree has achieved substantial proportions and scale with the canopy extending over the roadway. It has an approximate height of 16-18m and a spread of 22-25m with a trunk diameter at 1.0m above the ground of 1.8m
Significance
The large Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla), located within the front garden of the ‘Adereham Hall’ apartment building, makes a significant contribution to the visual and aesthetic character of this local streetscape. Similar examples of mature remnant figs can be found throughout the Elizabeth Bay precinct (refer to the adjoining Macleay Reserve and listings for 53-55, 85-91, 93 and 97 Elizabeth Bay Road in this Register). This specimen is now contained within a very small parcel of private open space, but remains as a significant historic element from this earlier phase of development.
Historical notes
This fig is likely to be a remnant of the once extensive gardens of Alexander and Eliza Macleay’s Elizabeth Bay House estate. If not directly part of the Macleay planting it is certainly from a similar era and is clearly evident as a mature tree in 1943 aerial photos. It is likely to have been planted at the same time as similar planting of other Moreton Bay Figs in nearby Macleay Reserve.
This large growing species was used as a major landscape element throughout much of the nineteenth century and remains an important and defining landscape element in the Elizabeth Bay harbour-side precinct. The magnificent scale and broad dense evergreen canopies of these figs were ideally suited to grand garden schemes.
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