Wooton Lea owned by Adelaide businessmen Francis Faulding and George Fowler before its girls' college future
Two prominent 19th Century South Australian businessmen, Francis Faulding and George Fowler, were the owners of Wooton Lea mansion at Adelaide's Glen Osmond. It became part of Presbyterian Girls College (later Seymour College) in 1922.
The Wooton Lea mansion in Adelaide’s east, built in 1861 for early South Australian chemist and pharmaceutical products manufacturer Francis Hardy Faulding, became a state-heritage-listed part of Seymour College (formerly Presbyterian Girls College) in the 20th Century.
The two-storey stone house with 17 rooms and an extensive garden was designed by Adelaide architect James Macgeorge. After Francis Faulding died in 1858, Wootton Lea was bought by George Fowler, another wealthy Adelaide businessman and grocery manufacturer, in 1873.
Fowler made many changes to Wooton Lea including, in 1876, an access driveway with an avenue of trees and a lodge at the gateway to Portrush Road. The lodge was home to the head gardener. The cement pillars and veranda roof across the western façade of Wootton Lea were removed and replaced by balconies with wrought iron pillars and balustrades. A basement with a tiled swimming pool was added and a billiard room. Other improvements inside the house were parquetry flooring and William Morris wallpaper in the grand drawing room and dining room. Outside, a conservatory was constructed, with trees and shrubs and orange and stone fruit orchards planted.
Fowler also bought land between Wootton Lea and Glen Osmond Road and gifted a 40-feet-wide strip to enable a road connection (Fowlers Road) to Glen Osmond Road to be constructed.
Fowler died in 1896. The third owner of Wooton Lea, Arthur Crossing sold the mansion in 1921 that, authorised by of the state assembly of the Presbyterian Church, became a private girls college. As part of Presbyterian Girls’ College, Wooton Lea became known as main house, the boarding house, Fowler's House and, since 1938, Barr Smith House. With the Uniting Church formed in 1977, the college was renamed after Dr J.A. Seymour, first chairman of the Presbyterian Girls College council of governors.
In 1925, the college bought the adjoining McGregor House with six acres and was used as a boarding house. After severely deteriorating, it was demolished in 1971 and replaced by a new junior school. Other outbuildings – coach house, cottages, gatehouse, stables, quarters, pump house and stone wall along Gilles Road – were preserved and part of the state heritage listing.
