Sydneytecture: Lost Villas of Sydney: Potts Point, Tor Cottage/Chatsworth

Lost Villas of Sydney: Potts Point, Tor Cottage/Chatsworth

Original

Today (Google)

This is Tor Cottage in 1859, as seen from Grantham, looking up the Harbour to the Heads. It was built in 1849 as a single-storey, then extended up another level, not long before this photo. In the 1880s, it was sold and the new owner rebuilt it as a grand villa, renamed Chatsworth.

While no photos exist of Chatsworth's exterior (apart from the one I enhanced further down, taken much later at a distance) this is its ballroom in 1884, and indicates the house's social level.

Original

Restored

Chatsworth in 1960, at top right, a few years before it was demolished for flats, with the terraced garden running down to the tennis court and boatshed on the bay shore.

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Sydneytecture is about more than just vintage photos of Sydney then and now in newly realised colour. The focus is on once-well known places that have been forgotten. And especially, identifying the interesting details in lost, anonymous images.

I also geolocate old mystery photos.

As an old Sydney buff, I wanted to see how life really looked to our ancestors in these faded black & white photos. But just colouring the old-tech wasn't enough, so I strive to make each photo as realistic as if it was taken by a modern camera. And for historical archival purposes, I ensure each is accurate to the original.

I do these just for myself, but I thought I'd share them here for anyone who's also interested.

[*It's important to know that there are websites on YouTube and Facebook which claim to show vintage photos of Sydney "come to life". However, they are auto-generated AI, and are just totally fictitious cartoons, full of errors and false-invention, nothing at all 'real'.]

Each restoration can take days to craft, to ensure they're true to their original. (The main page here shows low-resolution previews, so click to enlarge for clearer detail.)

Google Street View is usually linked, so you can check out how each scene is today.

All photos are from Trove, and all dates are confirmed via Sand's Directory and Dove's Maps.

I regularly upload new posts.

How it's done

As an amateur, I work the manually-intensive way. First, the monochrome source image is enhanced in Photoshop to identify the various elements that require work, along with other areas for concentration. Next, I run any necessary elements through Flux or Nano B2 for primary colouring. The next stage is layer work and assembling in Affinity. The final stage is PS again, where all the fine work on light levels, contrasts, colouring, toning, and refinements are done. Most importantly, everything is constantly cross-matched with the original source image to ensure accurate replication.

...And yet, as AI engines improve, within a year or two all of this will be redundant, as their image-generation capabilities will no doubt be on par.