St Mark’s College- Henry Watson’s House

This simple home with its trim little parapet wall and attic bedroom for servants, dates from the 1840’s.

Beneath the brick exterior however, lies a secret.  The original home was in fact one of Henry Manning’s prefabricated timber cottages, shipped out from London and erected here around 1839 by Henry Watson, making it one of Adelaide’s earliest surviving homes.  Once encased in brick a few years later, the house was purchased by George Morphett in 1848. During the 1850’s it was owned by George Young, a merchant.  Like the other Manning prefabricated building further down Pennington Terrace, the Quaker Meeting House, Watson’s House (later Walkley Cottage) is a rare example of colonial architectural innovation.  It is believed to have been used as a club house for Army officers

In 1928, it was acquired by St Mark’s College, a residential college of The University of Adelaide.